


And For Once, The Sun Is Shining

by InsertSthMeaningful



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: #TheyDeserveBetter, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, And so is Charles, Canon is changed to erase their really idiotic mistakes, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Cherik - Freeform, Cherik Inktober Challenge 2019, Erik Has Feelings, Erik is a Happy Bunny for Once, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Jean Grey so is their adoptive daughter!, M/M, Modern AU, Powered AU, They both are fertile bastards, They really deserve better and they get it in this collection, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, first one is post-DP, in chapter 18, second one changes FC's canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-09 07:06:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 46,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20849462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful
Summary: A collection of 31 ficlets for the #TheyDeserveBetter Challenge, where Charles and Erik are allowed to be happy and fluffy and just fine for once (hence the title, even though clouds can be nice to look at, too). The snapshots take place in the Movieverse and maybe in some simple AUs as well, we'll see. Enjoy!





	1. Day 1: Puppies! (Ok, one puppy, but still: Fluff!)

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed, but I tried to kill off any errors I could find. Still, feel free to point out any misspellings, grammar mistakes or just plain false information!

In the middle of the night, Erik woke up to find his husband – renowned Professor of Genetics, founder and (once again) headmaster of the Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters as well as mutant activist – crying softly. The bedside lamp was on, bathing the scene in a soft, yellow glow, turning Charles’ silent tears to glinting stars on his cheeks.

Could it have something to do with their leave from Genosha? Erik wondered as he sat up and ground his teeth against the creaking in his spine. He might be more fit than most people his age, but he still felt every single one of his 65 years in his bones. And Charles had the same problem, he knew, it had been the reason they’d moved back into the school after all. They had had a hard time leaving, of course. Still had, if Charles’ wet cheeks were any indication.

“Schatz? Was…?” Before his brain could revert back to English, Charles spoke. And smiled.

“All is fine, Erik, dear. More than fine, actually. Look at what Kitty gave me as a welcome gift today.” A rustle, and Charles was shoving a glossy poster into Erik’s face.

“Is that… a puppy?” Erik unfolded the paper on his lap, trying to smooth out the crinkles distorting big chocolate eyes and shining, curly fur. “A spaniel?”

“Yes.” Charles’ watery smile only widened. “She said it’s her favourite poster, from one of those pet magazines, you know. She thought it would be nice if I had something to hang up in my room, so I wouldn’t get homesick.”

“Huh.” Erik couldn’t help the grin spreading on his face (and one, just one, very happy tear forming in the corner in his eye). “Now you surely won’t want to return to Genosha, will you? The kids love you already.”

“I’ve got everything I need right here. The kids, my books, a purpose…” Charles leaned over to press a kiss to the corner of Erik’s lips. “You.”

And now Erik was definitively crying, too. 


	2. Day 2: The Kitten that Changed Canon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-betaed, but proof-read! Hope you had a lovely day!

It was on the third week of their road trip dedicated to finding mutants that Erik caught Charles in flagrante delicto.

“Stop feeding stray cats, Charles.”

Butter cube and some paper-wrapped stripes of greasy bacon in his hands, the telepath turned around. In the dingy, narrow alley at the back exit of the hostel, barely illuminated by the awakening dawn, his big, blue eyes were wide with guilt.

“But this one’s only a kitten.”

Erik gave him a flat look. “And what will it do when it grows up like this, barely surviving? It’ll procreate, make lots of small cute kitties. And what-” He held up a hand to nip Charles’ spawning protest in the bud- “will _they_ do? Life the same miserable life as their parents. Best to put them out of their misery before it can even begin.” That said, he turned, ignoring the other man’s incredulous gaze, and stepped back inside.

Suitcases had to be packed, hostel expenses to be paid, and mutants to be recruited.

No time for kittens.

The same day, when they returned from another unsuccessful mutant interview to their car, Erik opened the driver’s door just to find a tiny, furry creature curled up on the seat.

He prodded it carefully. It was warm, a bit scraggy. And purring softly.

The other car door opened and Charles popped his head in, guilt immediately taking over his features as he caught sight of the stow-away.

“Uh.” He shot Erik an apprehensive glance. “There really is nothing more peaceful than a sleeping cat, is there?” Strands of guilt, nervousness and a certain underlying sense of affection – impossible to determine whether it was aimed at the cat or at Erik – radiated off him.

“It’s probably got worms. And loads of other maladies. You know how many diseases stray cats can transmit.”

Now, this was Erik’s main point. A predator doesn’t catch diseases. Because if it does, it’s no longer a predator. It’s prey.

Not that Erik would consider himself a predator, no. But in the end, there wasn’t much difference between a hunter and a monster.

“I took her to the vet while you were having your morning shower, there was one just around the corner.” The ball of fur sneezed and Charles took the time to smile down at it – or rather, her – before continuing, “She does indeed have worms, but they washed her and gave me dewormer tablets. All she needs now is a name.”

Erik stared at Charles, his begging smile, his blue, blue eyes.

“Seriously? We’re having a cat?”

“Seriously. There are pet shops everywhere, and Raven will love her.” A brilliant smile, just for Erik. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Erik sighed.

“No… I don’t.”

The Cuban sun is blinding him. The sea breeze is biting his cheeks, the hum of the rockets at the mercy of his powers is intoxicating.

There’s sand everywhere, and Erik can’t help thinking that the Cat would love it here, on the beach.

“Erik, you said yourself, we’re the better men. This is the time to-”

“Charles?”

“Yes, Erik?”

He can feel his lover eyeing him worriedly even without turning his head.

“Did we forget to feed the Cat?”

Silence, merely broken by the waves lapping on the beach. Then, the shuffling of shoes in sand as Charles turns to shout, “Raven! Did we feed the cat?”

“Oh shit!” And that’s when Erik turns, sending the rockets to the ocean floor so he can watch Charles’ apologetic sister jogging towards them without being disturbed by haphazard explosions. “_Holy shit_ guys, I forgot to feed the fleaball!”

“She doesn’t have fleas anymore,” Erik objects, already starting up the beach. “Charles, are you coming? We can’t let your stray starve to death.”

_Coming? Certainly tonight_, comes back from the telepath, and Erik grins.

The humans can wait. _Now_ is kitten-time.


	3. Day 3: Space Sunset Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-betaed still, same as always!

“Eriiik, can you come here? The sun is setting again!”

Erik sighed and stopped putting the finishing touches to the last living module of the X-People’s new space station. “Hank, can I leave you with this for a few minutes? I need to cater to my dear husband’s antics again.”

“Sure, no problem Mags,” came the absent-minded answer. “I’ll get by.”

Erik let the use of that (honestly, _derogatory_) alias slip and turned to navigate skilfully through the tangle of tubes, hatches and work areas towards his telepath. The station’s magnetic field was a mere speck of dust against the Earth’s and only about a few dozen hours old, but it already sang to Erik’s metal sense like a second home.

He sent a mildly annoyed _Again?_ ahead to the glass construction that resembled a bell cover and served as one of the vessel’s lookouts, and received a firm _Again._ as an answer. Shaking his head, he twisted around a corner, then another one, here and there testing the ties with which the diverse equipment was secured, and finally, he arrived at his destination.

Charles was already floating in the middle of the dome, nose all but pressed up against the glass, immobile legs no longer a dead weight in the zero-gravity environment. Beneath him, Earth lay like a speckled cue ball, and a comm module was blinking away quietly on his wrist, rattling off a list of information about oxygen levels, external temperature and the overall integrity of the X-Mansion’s offset that was currently orbiting Earth.

Erik swam closer. “Do we really have to kiss in front of every sunset we happen to witness up here?”

“We do.” Charles bent to scribble something on a notepad, bonking his head against the thick glass as he did so. “Ouch. Also, you said yes when I asked you.”

“I wouldn’t have agreed if I had known that the sun sets sixteen times a day when we’re up here. I can’t just interrupt my work every half an hour.” Beneath him, an estuary he recognised as the Red Sea rolled into existence. To his left, Africa was already plunged into darkness.

Charles tutted. “Every hour and a half, Erik, learn to calculate. And we can just save up the kisses for a better opportunity.” On his wrist, the comm screen flickered to life, but Charles didn’t seem to notice. “We have yet to try out zero-gravity sex before Hank sets up the artificial gravity rotator.”

“Ugh, I didn’t need to hear that.” Raven’s face popped up on the module, quickly being converted into a hologram hovering between the mutant husbands. “Anyway, how’s it going up there? My monitors don’t show any malfunctions, but I’d like to hear it from you personally.”

The shapeshifter had volunteered to hold the fort down on Earth, and as far as Erik (and Charles, obviously, she was his perfect big sister after all) was concerned, she was doing a great job. X Ground Control was working together seamlessly with the XSS (aka X Space Station) and the School for Gifted Youngsters hadn’t burned down yet. Everything was going perfectly well.

“All’s clear,” Erik replied to Raven, “your brother is just tormenting me with his satyromaniac tendencies, otherwise…”

“Erik!” Charles, the sly little shit that he was, got to punch Erik’s biceps before the metalbender could even think of angling his body away. “What Erik said, Raven, except for the bit about me being a sex addict.” He smiled at the comm’s screen. “We’ve almost finished setting up. How about I contact you again later, so we can go over all measured results together?”

“Sure.” An exaggerated eye-roll. “Miss you two idiots, see you later!”

“Miss you, too, bye!” “Take good care of the kids.”

And then the connection crackled out and the two were alone again, safe for Earth revolving 253.5 miles beneath them. From the depths of the XSS came the sounds of the remaining crew, pottering about the last modifications, not paying any attention to what their head engineer and head supervisor were up to.

“Look.” Charles pointed down to a meandering band of lights on Earth’s dark surface. “The Nile. Doesn’t this make us seem infinitely small?”

“It does.” Erik manoeuvred closer to his husband so he could encircle his waist. “The sun’s down. You know what that means.”

Charles let out a breathy chuckle. “Just admit that you enjoy this, too, you big softie!”

“Never. Don’t want to flush my hard-earned reputation as a heartless mutant leader down the drain.”

“Plonker.” Freeing a hand from Erik’s embrace, Charles laced his fingers in his husband’s hair. “Now shut up and give me my space sunset kiss.”

And Erik did, with Earth far, far beneath them and the XSS shooting through empty space with a velocity of 4.8 miles per second.

Maybe sixteen sunsets per day weren’t so bad after all.


	4. Day 4: Sun of a Beach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to tell you (yes, you!): You're lovely and cute and powerful!

Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Jean Grey who had two fathers. Of course, they weren’t the two humans that had made her, but she loved them just as much, because they were her Dad and her Paps (and sometimes people really thought they were her real parents, when she said that her Dad was a “teley-paf” too, or when she told them that when she thought hard enough, she could move small change, just like her Paps).

Once upon a time, the little girl’s parents decided to take her to the beach and packed toys and sun cream and a picnic into their car, and off they were.

And once upon a time, the little girl was peacefully stacking up sand corn after sand corn with her special powers to build The Perfect Sand Castle when she heard her Dad shriek behind her.

Of course, she turned around, because every doctor had told her to always be careful, and that she could hurt others without noticing, even if she didn’t want to. And hurting her Dad, no, she really didn’t want to do that.

But when she saw her Paps stand over her totally soaked Dad and his completely wet beach towel, her plastic bucket for sand-castle-building empty in his hands, she knew that her Dad wasn’t hurting. Not at all. No, he was only fuming.

“Erik!” he shouted, and Jean wanted to shrink back because it made her feel all funny (and not in a good way), but she knew Charles didn’t want to hurt anyone, either, and least of all her. “You sonofa-”

At that, her Paps tutted and crouched down to brush dripping strands of hair from his husband’s face, but only succeeded in coating Charles’ brow with sand. “Not in front of the kid, Schatz, you know how receptive she is.” Then he turned to wink at Jean and toss her the bucket before stretching out on his own towel.

“You- You’re going to pay for this.” Her Dad was propped up on his wet elbows, staring daggers at her Paps who had apparently decided to take the opportunity and sunbath with relish under the blue sky (which was almost as blue as her Dad’s eyes).

Her Paps idly opened on eye. “You know you’ll dry in no time, right, and your towel, too?”

“Still, you- you _sun of a beach_, you-” And that was when her Dad stopped clamouring, but his narrowed eyes and his pursed lips and just the overall look of him – Jean never knew how to describe it – told the little girl that her fathers were now having a “private conservation”.

Of course, they had told her to not listen in when that happened.

But she didn’t understand what was so bad about a beach’s sun, and she really wanted to know, so she flicked out just a teensy-weensy tentacle of her Special Something that she never managed to describe, and did something that felt like tiptoeing towards her Paps’ bright Mind Light without her actual toes, and then she was in and was hearing what he was hearing and-

_You did this on purpose you wanker, just wait until we get home and finish putting Jean to bed, I’m going to- _

“Jean, Sternchen?” The cat-that-got-the-cream expression had vanished from her Paps’ face and he was now staring at her, brows slightly creased. “Could you please refrain from peeking?”

She knew she wasn’t in trouble. Pap’s mind would have turned a totally different taste and texture and colour if she were. Still, she put on the guiltiest expression she could manage and whispered, “Yes?”

“Just pull back, okay? We’re here, we’re not going to leave without you.”

Her Dad had now taken notice as well, and even though his round cheeks turned a strange shade of red (Jean never understood why they did that, sometimes it would even happen when she complained about strange noises she’d heard during the night), he still took the time to scold her. “Jeany-Beany, you know you shouldn’t just read people’s minds without permission! Promise you won’t do it anymore?”

“I won’t do it anymore, Dad.” Jean didn’t understand why they were making such a fuss over it now. Her Dad hadn’t even said anything special in her Pap’s head, he had probably just wanted to talk about washing up or playing chess after she’d gone to bed or something.

Adults were strange.

Almost as if he had heard that, her Dad smiled at her and suddenly, the world was alright again. “Good. Now go on finishing your castle, we’re eating in a minute. And don’t even think of taking off your t-shirt, you know how easily you get sunburns!”

She complied, and when she turned around to get more wet sand from beneath the tiny waves licking the beach, she heard her Paps mutter to his husband, “Don’t traumatise the poor kid, Charles. If she wants to take off her shirt-”

“And learn about her skin the hard way? Erik, I love you, but sometimes I can’t help doubting your intelligence…”

And so it went on behind her back, the bickering almost as much of a background noise as the lapping of the sea on the shore, and she knew that if her parents did that, they were truly happy.

Her sand castle grew and grew, and when she ran up the beach to join her fathers for lunch under the parasol, both her Dad and her Paps gave her a hug and a smacker on the forehead (which she wiped off because _yuck_) and told her how proud they were of having her as their daughter. And at that moment, she wouldn’t have traded them for anything in the world, because they were the _best parents _she could’ve _evereverever_ wished for. 


	5. Day 5: The Power of Love (oh, and a Road Trip)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Struggled with inserting an mp3-file of The Power of Love by Air Supply down there and failed. Sorry guys, now you have to go listen to it on YouTube if you want the whole experience :/

“No Charles. Absolutely not. We’re not going on a road trip for a _tea kettle_.”

“But it’s so cheap without the shipping costs! And you desperately need to get out, you’ve been working on your project every single day for the past three weeks, and you know that I as your husband require utmost attention and loving care and lots of tea.”

“Says the one who’s holed up in his office 24/7.”

“Please, Erik.” Charles miserably glanced down at the dry tea bag in his empty cup like he had been doing for the past three days since their old tea kettle had blown his last whistle. Then, he fixed Erik with his big, blue, watery eyes. “Please. Do you want me to die? Because I sure feel like doing so right now.”

Sighing, Erik knocked back his morning espresso and rounded the kitchen table to take the now purposeless tea cup from his husband’s unresisting hands. “You know you can’t die from tea withdrawal, Charles, you’re a scientist with five Ph.D.’s, verdammt! For the last time: No, we’re not going on a random road trip. I can go down to the stores this evening and get you a shiny new kettle, but we _are not_ going on a road trip through _two states_ just to retrieve a _second-hand_ tea kettle.”

Silence. The forlorn expression on his spouse’s face as he stared at the table top almost made Erik give in, but he stood his ground, keeping his mouth shut firmly. He had work to do, and so had Charles, they couldn’t possibly take a week off and spend a few hundred dollars on gas just to pick up an old, probably terribly battered kitchen utensil from eBay.

Still. Breaking out of his daily rut, leaving their comfortable if tiny flat behind for more than a work day, and be it just for something as ordinary as a used tea kettle, was incredibly tempting.

Hesitantly, he stowed away the unused tea bag and cup and turned on the warm water to wash up the dishes from their breakfast. “Schatz, could you please come to hold onto the kitchen towel and help me? Work doesn’t wait.”

A deep sigh was heaved behind his back. Then, he heard the scuffling of chair legs on parquet and the tapping of bare feet on wood, and before he could turn around, a warm, soft body was pressed up against his backside, from head to toes (well, almost from head to toes, Charles was puny in comparison to him).

“Please,” Charles breathed softly just beneath Erik’s ear, “I’ll do _anything_.”

Erik groaned. His fingers were itching to grab Charles by his shoulders, pin him up against the wall or bend him over the kitchen counter – or let himself be spread out on the kitchen counter, if only he could taste Charles’ lips on his-

“Yes, Erik, yes, _please_,” his husband moaned and started to both grope Erik’s ass and begin to mouth at the nape of his neck.

And that tipped him right over the edge. He turned around. “You little minx you, I’ll teach you to-”

“Ah, no.” Charles grabbed his wrists and pinned them up against the cupboard. “Only if you agree to take four days off from work and get the kettle with me.”

Erik stared, not quite believing his ears. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Charles’ self-satisfied smile should be illegal. “All is fair in love and war.”

“You’re _unspeakably lucky_ you’re the one person I love the most on this planet.”

“Is that a yes? Please tell me that’s a yes-”

“Yes, alright, yes! Happy now?”

“Very.” And Charles’ wide grin when he dropped to his knees spoke indeed volumes. “Thank you, you’re the best husband I ever had and ever will have!”

“I’m not even going to comment on that,” Erik groaned as Charles started to pull down his pyjama bottoms, but he couldn’t help a slight smile spreading on his lips.

Of course, he would never admit it, but seeing that utterly pleased, utterly carefree expression on his husband’s face meant the world to him.

They had been on the highway for five hours when the last notes of Take Me Home, Country Roads slowly faded out and were replaced by The Power of Love (the cover version by Air Supply, though, not the original).

“Oh, I know this song!”

“Of course, you do.” Erik carded a hand through his hair, the other one rapping on the steering wheel in tune with the music’s rhythm. “It came on at our wedding and you mistook it for a Viennese waltz.”

Charles chuckled. “I did not, I was most probably joking, you tosser.”

“Liar. You just don’t want to admit that you were wrong for once.”

But Charles was already humming along to the song, blissfully ignoring Erik’s justified teasing.

The road’s concrete was whizzing past under the car’s belly, with Erik’s metal senses carefully sunk into its carrosserie and engine and wheel trims. Charles, too, had decided to give free rein to his gift, and his all-encompassing joy mixed with just a dash of drowsiness filled the vehicle like clear honey.

_Your voice is warm and tender _

_A love that I could _

_Not forsake _

Erik’s eyes were focussed on the seemingly endless stretch of grey ahead, but he still felt Charles move beside him, and when his husband took his hand, inadvertently entwining their minds’ fringes, he gripped it tightly. The tension he hadn’t noticed he had been carrying around for the past weeks vanished.

_Whenever you reach for me _

_I do all that I can _

“I have to admit this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.”

“I know, right?” Charles was now grinning at him, Erik knew because he had taken his eyes from the road to let them rest on his handsome spouse instead. Navigating on the highway was no problem when you could simply tap in on Earth’s magnetic field to keep track of all the other vehicles and the direction in which you were going.

_We’re heading for something _

_Somewhere I’ve never been _

_Sometimes I am frightened but I’m ready to learn _

“I love you,” Charles sighed, his bliss battering against Erik’s thoughts like long-awaited rain. “I really do.”

“I know.” He couldn’t resist grinning and dangling the confession with the L-word just right out of Charles’ reach, he really couldn’t, and only added, “I love you, too,” after his telepath had given him the mental equivalent of an elbow in the ribs.

And just to make it even more corny – them riding on a seemingly endless road with no destination but their shared bliss (and a second-hand tea kettle) already proving to be cheesier than fondue – they decided to join in with the radio and sang the last few verses of the song as a duet.

_From the power of love _

_The sound of your heart beating _

_Made it clear suddenly _

_The feeling that I can’t go on _

_Is now lightyears away _

And within a radius of a dozen miles, everybody felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to smile take on shape in their heads.


	6. Day 6: Kiss (Me Awake)

Once upon a time, absolute silence was screaming in Charles’ head as he made his way up the narrow winding stairs.

He shivered, gripping his sword’s handle tighter as he climbed step after step. Down in the castle’s main body, he had at least been able to pick up on the waves of deep sleep the servants and knights, the king and the queen, the maids and the cooks were drowned in. Vague sensations of nightmares and dreamy meadows had accompanied him as he had wandered the hallways, all of them richly furnished, but covered in inches of dust that no living soul had moved in a hundred years.

Now, though, he felt nothing tugging at the fringes of his mind. No sound penetrated the stillness but for his own footfalls, muffled by the decadent velvet carpet and the dust covering it. Had he not known better, had he not read the records and heard the stories, he probably would have believed to be headed towards nothing but an abandoned chamber at the very top of the castle’s tower.

But he had listened to the tales. Had leafed through the ancient storybooks. He knew what to search for.

_There_. But a weak pull at his gift’s range, it still sang to him like a beacon, powerful, all-encompassing, of an eerily structured quality even in deepest dream. He quickened his pace, pulled his cloak with his family’s intricately embroidered crest tighter around his shoulders. Sure, after so many years asleep, his object of obsession would not get up and jump out of the tower’s windows this very minute, but he couldn’t wait to see with his own eyes.

He began counting his frantic heartbeats, his stuttering breaths. A dozen, a hundred… And finally, the stairs ended, and he came to stand before a simple wooden door.

It was unlocked, barely shut. A thin sliver of daylight fell from the crack between its wood and the doorframe.

Oddly, Charles’ legs were trembling. He stepped forward, rested his hand on the doorknob. _This_ was the moment of truth, the one instant he had waited for since his father had allowed him to set aside his princely duties to set off on this quest.

He pushed, and the door swung open.

Laid out before him, on a cot cushioned with magenta velvet, was the Sleeper. Motes of dust danced in the sunlight pouring in through the narrow windows in the curved stone walls, every now and then disturbed in their peaceful roundel by the Dreamer’s barely audible breath.

Charles drew closer, stood at the sleeping figure’s side for what seemed like an eternity to him.

He had done it. He had found Erik Lehnsherr, Prince of Genosha, and the cursed man was his to rescue.

He bent down. Studied the Sleeper’s face. It was youthful, serene. Every once in a while, his lashes trembled, but his eyes never opened.

Charles took a deep breath. His telepathy wouldn’t be enough to rouse the Prince, he knew as much, for many princes and princesses with the same gift had tried before and failed miserably. Still, he couldn’t help reaching out, just barely caressing the Prince’s brilliant mind currently entranced in a dream about a lush, vast forest teeming with wildlife.

Smiling, Charles reached out with his hands, too, and gently ran his fingertips over the other man’s cheekbones. Then, he bent down and met the Sleeper’s lips with his.

It was but a soft kiss, an innocent press of their mouths. And still, it weakened Charles’ knees. For it felt to him like coming home.

When he straightened up again, Prince Lehnsherr’s eyes of swirling grey were wide open. And with a smile, he rasped his first words in a hundred years.

“What a sight to wake up to.”

Three weeks later, Charles Xavier, Prince of Westchester, and Erik Lehnsherr, Prince of Genosha, were united in marriage. They rushed through the opulent dinner afterwards and bid their guests farewell as soon as possible, and then, they stumbled to their royal bedroom and consummated their union with burning kisses and sweeter words.

Afterwards, they lay side by side under the covers, their heartbeats slowing, satisfied smiles a steady presence on their lips as they couldn’t help gazing at each other.

“I’m still not quite sure if this is real or just another dream,” Erik muttered and reached over to brush an unruly lock of chocolate brown hair from his beloved husband’s face.

“It’s real. It’s so real it hurts,” Charles breathed and grinned widely, “but in a good way.”

“You speak the truth.” The metal headboard creaked, bending back into its original shape from before they had lost themselves in their shared pleasure. Erik met Charles’ eyes, then grabbed the blanket’s hem to fold it back and unashamedly let his gaze rake over the other man’s body. “And I know I’ve said it a hundred times, but I’m unspeakably glad it was you who woke me from my slumber.”

Charles burst out laughing. _Oh, Erik, so am I. So am I._ And so, he leaned in and reclaimed his husband’s lips, and Erik responded with enthusiastic fervour.

That night, they didn’t get much sleep. But as they woke in the morning, exhausted and ruffled beyond compare, they found that their smiles had not vanished from their faces.

And so they lived happily ever after, the Sleeping Beauty and the Prince Who Had Rescued Him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My clichéd take on the Cherik-version of Sleeping Beauty. Hope you enjoyed and generally are well <3


	7. Day 7: Emotional Support Cuddles

“Whoops, sorry.” The blue-eyed boy who had just nearly knocked out Erik’s brains with his hand luggage shot Erik a harried smile, then continued jamming his hard-shell trolley in the compartment overhead.

Erik glowered, but soon decided it was useless anyway, because the rude Brit was currently paying attention to anything but him. And when his seat neighbor plonked down beside him and whipped out his phone to begin a loud, detailed argument with a female voice (his sister, from what Erik could hear, and he could hear _a lot_) he crossed his arms, leaned his head against the tiny oval window beside him and resigned himself to his cruel fate.

It was going to be a _long _flight.

As it turned out, Erik indeed didn’t have anything in common with Sky Eyes (not that he felt like he needed to, anyway). The boy was talkative, touchy-feely, incredibly annoying. Erik on the other hand plugged his earphones in as soon as they were airborne, growled when his seat neighbor’s sweeping gestures came too close to him and found that he’d annoyed himself for only about 50% of the life he’d already led.

And so, the plane flew on, from London, Heathrow, to NY’s JFK Airport. Successfully having put off the blue-eyed, red-lipped man, Erik watched through the haze of Heavy Metal hammering out of his earphones as the man chatted up the old lady in the aisle seat instead. He could read from their faces that their conversation had them completely captivated and concluded that if his seat neighbour could chew any grandma’s ear off like that, he had to be an eighty-year-old at heart.

Outside, the sun set over the sea of clouds. Dinner was served and finished, then the lights dimmed. After some awkward manoeuvring over his seat neighbor’s heads, Erik got hold of his sleeping pills and unceremoniously knocked one back.

Head pillowed against the window, he fell asleep immediately.

Erik woke two or three hours later, disoriented and with a certain red-lipped man fast asleep on his shoulder.

What had roused him, though, hadn’t been the unwelcome body contact. Erik didn’t worry about whether his seat neighbour snored or drooled or twitched while lost in dreams. No, he was currently worrying about the plane rocking and trembling like a leaf in the wind.

Turbulences. Great. _Exactly_ what Erik had needed.

The airplane dropped again, and he gritted his teeth. In the distance, he meant to hear the machine’s wings groan and strain. He knew it was irrational, a metallokinetic mutant being afraid of a plane crash when he could so easily just grab hold of the hull and Earth’s magnetic field and save everyone. But sometimes, such a fear was simply _there_. And nothing could change that.

He would just have to sit that one out.

Suddenly, the unnervingly constant weight of his seat neighbor’s head disappeared from his tense shoulder. Taking his eyes from where they had been locked grimly on the plane’s steadily blinking navigation lights, he turned.

“Hey.” Sky-Eyed Brit smiled at him, his eyes small from sleep. “I took my dampeners, but I could still hear you worry from a hundred miles away.” A broad hand, not quite fitting the boy’s chiselled features, (except for his disproportionately big nose), came to rest on Erik’s knee.

He couldn’t think straight. Maybe it was the sleeping pill, maybe the inevitable truth that he was trapped in a cramped metal can hundreds of miles above the Atlantic, but he couldn’t for the life of him justify why he didn’t immediately snarl and back off, but spat out a dumbfounded, “Dampeners?” instead.

The other man chuckled. “I’m a telepath. Charles Xavier, nice to meet you.” And he held out a hand.

Still stupefied, Erik took it. Every day, it seemed, he was destined to surprise himself. He hadn’t known he could be nice to complete strangers. “Erik Lehnsherr.”

Charles Xavier immediately cut to the chase. “Aviatophobia?”

“Excuse me, what?”

“Fear of flying.” Now Charles Xavier’s hand began _stroking_ Erik’s knee, and the possibility of a plane crash became less and less daunting.

“Oh, sorry.” The hand disappeared and a tentative smile made its way onto Xavier’s face. “I apologise. Unlike you, I’m quite a corporeal person.”

Now, Erik should have probably told the man off. But his eyes were just _so blue_. “No problem.”

Then, awkward silence ensued. For a few heartbeats, only the snoring and occasional shuffling of their fellow passengers hung between them.

Until the plane was caught in a particularly violent gust of wind, that is, and Erik couldn’t help letting a small yelp escape. He gripped his armrest tightly-

Only to be stopped by his seat neighbor, who pushed his hand away and folded the potential handhold in case of an unexpected plane crash up. Suddenly, it seemed to Erik that it wasn’t so difficult anymore to be offended. “Beg your pardon-”

“Did you know that a human being – and with that I’m talking about mutants, too – need a certain number of hugs and cuddles per day to lead a healthy life? And that cuddles can be applied as a stress-relief, too?” Obviously trying to be quiet (and not in the least succeeding), Xavier began clearing away his books and his phone and his cardigan (honestly, how much hand luggage could a human/mutant possibly have?), then turned back to Erik, still with that damned smile on his face. “So, I suggest we try this out with your aviatophobia.”

At first, Erik was too outraged to speak. Then, he found he was too _confused_ to answer. And finally, he thought _Fuck it, it’s just for one or two more hours, and he isn’t even quite so bad-looking, what could possibly go wrong?_ Out loud he said, “Alright. Let’s try it.”

The expression on Charles’ face could have replaced the sun. “Oh, great,” he breathed, “I didn’t actually think you’d agree, but I’m in desperate need of some body contact, too.” And that said, he scuffled over on his seat and leaned into Erik.

For a few heartbeats, Erik didn’t know what to do. Then, he freed his arm from where the other man was laying on it and put it around his shoulders, squeezing gently.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Charles’ hair every now and then tickling Erik’s jawline and Erik trying not to move too much so as to not disturb the boy.

A frustrated sigh shook him out of his focus. “That’s not how this works,” Charles muttered, then began to rearrange himself so his head was slotted under Erik’s chin. Next, Erik felt him grasp his biceps and began to massage it gently. “You have to relax, or else neither you nor me will benefit from this.”

“And how, exactly?” Erik couldn’t stop himself from hissing.

“Stop thinking of me as a stranger, even if it’s difficult.” Charles had straightened up again, eyes now intent on catching and holding Erik’s, then gradually flickering downwards (towards what? Erik’s lips?). “Or maybe…”

Erik frowned. “Or maybe what?”

“Oh, nothing.” Charles put on an innocent expression, and Erik got the feeling that he just had been lied to, but let it slip. “Just relax, alright? For me?”

Not even a man with a heart of stone could have said no to those puppy dog eyes.

“Alright,” Erik sighed, and this time it was him who opened his arms and pulled the other man inside.

Charles was warm against him. Soft. Quite unlike the cool, slick feel he got from the plane’s metal. He felt himself relax.

“Yes, just like that,” was the last thing he heard – whispered quietly with a posh British accent – before he fell into a deep, fearless sleep.

They couldn’t have slept more than an hour or so until he was woken by the pilot announcing over speaker that they had reached their destination and would land shortly, but Erik felt entirely rested. Under his chin, his savior was still snoring lightly, every now and then tightening his arms around Erik’s waist as if he were holding onto someone in the land of dreams, too.

Even though remorse chipped away at his heart, Erik woke him. A few awkward glances were shared, some apologies over blotches of drool were muttered, and the ease from before their embrace had dissipated into thin air. Erik didn’t mind.

Ok. Maybe he did mind. Just a bit.

And it seemed he wasn’t the only one, because as he got off the plane and turned towards where the sign for the baggage claim directed him, he could hear harried footsteps behind him and an urgent, “Erik, wait!”

He stopped in his tracks. A ruffled shock of brown hair speed-walked into his field of vision.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Charles Xavier told him, expression for once entirely serious. “May I buy you a coffee?”

Feeling reckless again, Erik was the first to smile. “Aber gern doch.”

They did indeed get coffee together. They got a taxi together, too, when they noticed that their apartments weren’t quite that far from each other, and before Erik got off first, they exchanged numbers.

A few dates later, they exchanged even more than that. And after two years, Erik moved in with Charles, and in the privacy of their home, they did whatever they desired to do.

Erik’s favorite thing above all, though, would always be this: The two of them together on their couch, a good movie and some popcorn… and cuddles. _Tons_ of them.

Because once Erik had gotten a taste of Charles, he simply _couldn’t get enough of him_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seven days of this madness already. Gosh, I'm tired.


	8. Day 8: How to Build a Fireplace – A Guide by the Xavier-Lehnsherr Family

“Uh-oh,” Wanda said.

“What?” Pietro looked up from where he was speed-dressing and -undressing their dolls (sometimes Wanda was jealous of her brother’s Special Power, but then she remembered that _she_ was the one who could un-break things and was quite happy with herself again).

“I think Papa saw what you did to the living room, he’s head-shouting for Dad.”

“What _we_ did to the living room!” Still, her brother’s eyes widened in alarm and he jumped up to step from one foot onto the other, again and again, making the floor tremble like a washing machine in its spin cycle. “What’s Dad doing?”

“You know he’s reading Lorna a book and helping David with his homework! He told us!”

“What? And I have to remember everything he does with our stepped sister and our stepped brother?”

“It’s stepsister, and Lorna isn’t our stepsister, she’s our _half-sister_, because Paps is her Papa, too.” _Boys_, Wanda thought. “And anyway, Papa just found Dad, and he’s taking him to the living room right now. We better hurry if we don’t want to get into trouble.”

Pietro sighed, but then jumped about clearing up their toys. “We’re goin’ to get into trouble anyway, Papa won’t let us go just because we’re well-behaeft.”

“It’s _behaved_. And I knew he would get Dad, so it’s not going to be that bad.” Wanda stretched out a tendril of her Feel Everything to push open their bedroom’s door. “You coming?”

“Ok! Who’s first downstairs!” And Pietro shot past her.

She could only scream half of “Not fair!” before she felt him skidding to a halt on the living room carpet. She huffed, concluded that her brother was dumb, and then she started down the stairs, taking her sweet time.

After all, it was not her who had broken a wall.

When Charles wheeled into the room they had elected to be the living and dining room in the mansion, a sleepy Lorna on his lap and a grumpy David in tow, Erik was already there, standing at the wall facing the windowfront.

Or rather, at the hole that was now in the wall facing the windowfront. It was square-shaped, about the size of one of those expensive flat-screens Erik had been begging him for since they had last had a movie night with all the full-aged students. Behind it, there was a small, sooty space. Erik was currently helplessly staring at it.

“I really don’t know how it came to be there,” he mumbled.

Something small, vaguely child-shaped whizzed past the door and stopped only short of crashing into Charles’ wheelchair. It was their son, Pietro.

“Or maybe I do.” Erik fixed the boy. “Pietro, did you do that?”

“What, Papa?” Pietro’s face screamed innocence. His thoughts less so.

Charles smiled. “The fireplace. You rediscovered a fireplace that must have been walled up, as it seems.”

“Wait, that weird space behind the bricks was a fireplace?” David chimed in, school book clutched close to his chest.

Wanda wandered in. “Wait, you felt it, too?”

“Ok, no, let’s not even go into that direction, kids, we all know how awesome your telekinesis is.” Erik put his hands on his (honestly, ridiculously narrow) hips and squinted at the twins. “So, who did it?”

Immediately abandoning the sinking ship, Wanda pointed at Pietro and stated, “It was him. We were lying on the carpet reading comics, on our backs and over here, and he started tapping the wall with his feet, and suddenly it wasn’t there anymore.”

Charles chuckled at their kids’ misbehaviour, carding his hands through Lorna’s green hair. He already had an idea about what to make of the new living room accessory. Indeed, Pietro had just saved them the expenses of a home designer _and_ a renovator.

Erik, on the other hand, didn’t seem willing to let the incident slip just yet. Charles sighed. Once again, it was his turn to calm the waves.

“Pietro, what did I tell you about excessive use of your powers indoors?” Erik groaned. “_This_ is an ancient building, and it’s _sensitive_, and _Charles’ school_.”

Pietro looked ready to bolt. “But-”

“No buts, Pietro. Dessert tonight is-”

“Darling,” Charles butted in, “it’s _our_ school, and even though I agree that what Pietro did may not have been the best decision – especially that he didn’t tell us about it immediately – I don’t think we should withhold today’s chocolate pudding.” He turned to his silver-haired son. “Promise to be more careful with the walls from now on?”

“Scout’s honor!” Pietro’s smile turned to a grin as he gave his Paps the shifty-eyes.

“_He’s not even in the scouts_,” Erik mumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Then, he straightened up. “Alright. But now that we have a fireplace in here, let’s put it back into shape.” He pointed a finger straight at his son. “And _you_, Monsieur, will help me with that!”

Some protesting ensued, and Charles had to wheel out of the room, so Lorna didn’t wake up again. When he returned, successfully having put her to bed, his husband had already organised for Pietro and David to cart away the bricks and for Wanda to get a broom and wipe away the worst of the pulverised mortar and soot.

_You owe me one for this, Schatz_, Erik teased as he bent to inspect the cavity that once had been a fireplace and would be one again shortly.

_I know, darling_, Charles sent back and unashamedly checked out his beautiful husband’s backside. _How’s tonight sound? _

_Very good. _He could hear Erik smile even without seeing his face. _Very good indeed_.

In the end, the whole family helped with renovating the fireplace and overall rearranging the living room (since they were already on it, as Erik insisted). Even Raven came over, her wife Irene and their daughter Anna Marie in tow as well as her ex-boyfriend Azazel and their son Kurt, all of them proving to be more than useful at rendering the Xavier-Lehnsherr family’s living room homely again (and at depleting their stock of tea and biscuits, but in the name of hospitality, Charles decided to turn a blind eye on that).

From then on, all family events were held in the living room when they fell on a cold day. Birthday parties, family dinners, carving pumpkins on Halloween and opening presents on Christmas Eve, and later, as the children grew up and moved out and started their own lives, baby showers and engagements.

Of course, some only-adults events were held there, too. Mostly when all the children were out, Charles and Erik had had a few whiskeys too many to move to the bedroom and decided that carpet burns were a reasonable price to pay. Also, in front of the fireplace, where lively flames crackled invitingly, it was already warm.

But hush! No one has to know about _that_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Promise not to tell anyone about Fun Times In Front Of The Fireplace? ;)


	9. Day 9: A Blanket for Raven’s Brother as well as Something (or Someone) Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven changes the course of her and Charles' life with her stubbornness and sisterly obligation.

The moment Charles’ face lit up in the cold breeze sweeping the bridge of the military vessel, seemingly out of the blue, Raven knew someone very special was just about to enter their lives. Someone extraordinary. Someone like them.

And what she knew, too, was that that certain someone wasn’t meant for her, but for Charles.

“There’s someone in the water,” her brother breathed. The delight softening his features crumbled away rapidly, though, revealing pure fear as he shouted to the mutant in the water, “Let it go! You have to let it go!”

She didn’t try to hold him back when he thrust his coat into her arms, or when he stormed down the stairs to a gangway on a lower deck, not hesitating to jump into the dark, churning sea. And she watched – barely keeping her peach-and-pink-form in place from all the worry – as he reappeared, nothing but a dark shape, though with another one in tow.

But when the crew hesitated to throw them a rope ladder, as if they didn’t like the idea of having not two, but _three_ of their kind on their ship, Raven was glad that she’d insisted on tagging along with Moira and her brother, despite the latter thinking it was too dangerous for her and despite the CIA thinking _she_ was too dangerous for the _mission_.

Pushing the sailors or commanders or whatever military grade they occupied back, she grabbed hold of the corded ladder and threw it to the two figures in the water (only later did she learn that such a task normally required at least two crew members and that the ladder was actually quite heavy), then snarled at a random armed guy to go fetch some blankets and the ship’s medical something. Not one of the men objected.

Only one glance at Charles’ face – relieved, glowing, not quite on the same planet anymore – as she heaved him aboard with her hands under his armpits sufficed for her to understand that he had fallen in love. Or rather, jumped into love. Literally.

And when the other man, the other mutant, clambered onto deck, she couldn’t help herself and, just for the span of a heartbeat, made her eyes glow gold.

She was impressed with how unimpressed the new mutant’s expression remained. He simply shot her a curious look, then accepted the military-issue blanket handed to him by a navy soldier and followed the ship’s medical assistant under deck.

Charles had already disappeared down there, too, so of course, she went after them.

The medical bay was a cramped and rather glum affair. Two cots on the left and right wall, an operation table in the centre of the room, two cabinets with supplies, and no window. Absolute isolation. If you didn’t count in the doctor, Moira, some other military man and the two mutants – both looking like drowned rats – crowding the room, making it feel even more claustrophobic.

“Out! Everybody but the patients out!” The doctor shooed them all, the soldiers, the CIA agent, except for Raven, of course.

“I’m Professor Xavier’s sister. I’ll stay.” She shot him her best saccharine smile.

“Civilians,” he muttered, but didn’t object further, instead walking over to examine first her brother, then the stranger he’d dragged from the ocean. Ignoring Charles’ squawks of how he knew he was fine and “Oh, I really don’t think this is necessary”, then moving on to the other man – tall, dark, with a jawline that could cut glass – only to be glowered at wordlessly, he did his work, and Raven couldn’t help developing a certain admiration for the man’s motivation despite his more than unnerving patients. In the end, he declared them to be fine if a bit chilled and ordered that they strip and put on the dry military issue clothes that would be brought in in a min.

Then he walked out, the door swinging closed behind him, and left an awkward silence in his wake. That is, until Charles started babbling scientific nonsense. And with his teeth clattering, as should be mentioned, blanket drawn tight around his shoulders.

“So, Erik, w-w-what are your powers? Some kind of telek-kinesis? I wasn’t able to gather much from your, uh, surface thoughts, I never do because that would be a violation of p-p-privacy, but I have to admit the world seen through your eyes is magnificent indeed! It’s as if your po-powers were overlapping with your vision!”

The man, Erik, had the balls not to answer, and turned to Raven instead. He wasn’t quite smiling, but there was a certain amusement painting his features a bit softer. “You know him, do you not? Is he always like this?” There was an accent to his intonation that Raven couldn’t pin down. Oh well, never mind.

She smiled again. “Yes, he’s an old fart at heart. I should know, I’m his sister.” _And don’t deny that you like it already, stranger from the sea_, she added quietly. Ah yes, she had had time to study both their faces now, and they _both_ looked about equally starstruck.

Charles chuckled good-naturedly, then stretched out a hand covered in goosebumps towards her. “Raven, leave your old brother alone and come here, please.” She did as he wished and didn’t even twist away as he pressed his head against her belly, his hair dampening her coat (a normal one, not one made from her own skin). As it was, they didn’t hug as often as they had when they were younger, so she took the opportunity gratefully.

She was just rubbing his soaked shoulders and arms under the blanket to warm her dearest brother up a bit when he spoke, revealing his true reason for having her close. “She’s a mutant, just like us, Erik.” He looked up to Raven, blue eyes wide and begging, reminiscent of their childhood when she’d had a biscuit or a toy he wanted. “Can you show him, Raven? Please?”

She didn’t like to be showcased like something out of a cabinet of curiosities. She didn’t like being just another tool to Charles so he could boast about how amazing the human genome and how important his research into genetics was. She didn’t like to be a plaything, only loved for her mutation.

She also didn’t want to disappoint her brother. Stepping away from him, she shapeshifted into an exact replica of his body.

Erik didn’t gasp. Didn’t move from where he’d been standing like a statue for the last few minutes, didn’t show any reaction except for a slight widening of his eyes.

Oh, Raven was so fed up with this, with always being perceived as a means to an end, as a dumb little girl who had to be told what to do.

Putting on a grin, she shifted again. And this time, she didn’t cover up her blue scales, or her slick red hair, or her bitingly yellow eyes. She wanted to shock.

Judging from the almost inaudible “Fascinating!” escaping the trim man’s lips, she had succeeded.

And, in turn, was herself shocked by the words Charles contributed to the matter.

“Magnificent, isn’t she?”

Raven wanted to scream at her brother. Whack his head, do anything to shove that simple phrase back into his mouth. She wasn’t _magnificent_, she was a _freak_, a danger to herself and to him, and _anything_ but beautiful. He should just stop using her to impress his new _friend_.

The way he was looking up at _her_, though. Not at Erik. As if he really _meant _it, meant it for the sake of making her _happy_, making her _proud_.

“Must lay in the genes,” Erik interrupted her confusing self-argument. And the look he gave Charles was more than clear.

“Not quite.” Raven kept grinning, knowing what a striking contrast her pearl teeth made against her skin. “I’m adopted. He found me raiding his kitchen one night and convinced his parents I’d always been there. He can be a sly little bastard if he wants to.” She introduced a lewd quality to her voice. “Not that that would put you off, obviously.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she meant to see Charles blushing, and Erik looked utterly caught out. Great, one idiot more to count as family. Before she could pry on their newest weak spot, though, the door opened and a constipated-looking navy something walked in, deposited a stack of clothes on both cots and fled as fast as he had come.

“Oh.” Yep, Charles was definitely blushing now. “It seems as though we’ll have to change in the same room.”

Indeed, there had been no word of them being assigned any special place to get out of their wet clothes, and Raven couldn’t see any draw curtains hanging around to provide cover. Dutifully, she turned around, so her back was to Charles. Over the past few years, he’d somehow become more and more self-conscious until he couldn’t even walk around shirtless without blushing or glaring at her when she was around.

Erik didn’t seem to have any such concerns. He didn’t strip. But he also didn’t turn around to give Charles some privacy.

“Um, Erik, could you…?” came the hesitant question from behind Raven.

She caught Erik’s eye. He frowned at her, unashamedly seeking for permission.

From what she had gathered, he was an extraordinary man. Strong-willed, calculating and representing an unknown variable, unpredictably dangerous if rubbed the wrong way. Just right to keep Charles on his toes, to provide a daily challenge, ensuring that her brother would never get bored, but sometimes get just a tad bit hurt.

Raven considered her sisterly duties, then nodded. She could tell Erik later about what awaited him if he overdid it with Charles, but for the moment, she was inclined to let things take their course.

Erik grinned with the smile of a predator having licked blood and strode over to Charles’ cot, already pulling open the zippers on his wetsuit without even touching them. Charles’ eyes widened, pupils blown, lips bitten to a very edible red.

Not wanting to scar herself for eternity, Raven turned and walked out of the medical bay. And just before the door fell shut behind her, she could hear the sound of something wet hitting the floor and Charles spitting out a rather undignified “Blimey!”

She grinned and continued walking down the corridor. For once, letting Charles handle things by himself didn’t appear such a daunting prospect.

_Things. _

Quietly, she giggled to herself. And as she walked out onto deck to find Moira and tell her that her brother and his new _friend_ would be busy for a little while, she didn’t even think about changing back to her default form, attracting stares from the whole crew (and not all of their eyes were filled with utter disgust or petrified horror).

No. If change had found Charles’ life, it could as well come into hers. And that was a final. 


	10. Day 10: Dreams (May Come True)

Sometimes, Charles dreams.

He dreams of walking, running, feeling the damp lawn under his soles and the burn in his thighs. Mostly, he’s laughing, and at times Raven joins him, or Erik, sprinting at his side. He likes the dreams with Raven the most, because it’s the only time he gets to see her these days (and already her face is starting to fade, her voice, the distinct imprint of her mind, despite his eidetic memory).

When he wakes, Erik is usually holding him close to his chest so he doesn’t tumble straight out of their narrow bed. He’s always got difficulties reconciling reality with dream at first, and the numbness in his lower body seems strikingly strange, as does the fact that Raven isn’t there anymore. Never will be.

Usually, Erik has to wipe their tears away. Living after all that has happened is awful sometimes.

One morning, the sun has barely risen to kiss the Genoshan soil awake, Erik wakes Charles early (_too early_ in the telepaths opinion, and he tells Erik, but the man just laughs, and Charles really wants to slap him, but he can’t because he loves him so much). And when his quasi-husband doesn’t make a move to bring him breakfast in bed, but throws warm clothes at him instead, Charles’ confusion is complete.

“Now that’s one way to be woken up,” he grumbles as he jerks on his trousers to slide over his legs. “What’s become of the good old romantic scrambled eggs with toast and coffee?”

“Later, Schatz, later.” Erik’s grin seems glued on, just a tad bit painful (is there guilt laced in his thoughts?).

Only when they are out of the door, Charles safely tucked in his wheelchair, Erik strangely barefoot, he realises he doesn’t have a clue what he dreamt about last night. It doesn’t bother him, though. A dream disappearing from memory immediately after waking up happens all the time, and not only to him.

And Erik is still acting strange.

Soon, they leave the muddy streets winding between the colourful Genoshan houses and huts, instead taking a path which leads to a clearing in the forest, as Charles knows from multiple excursions with the kids attending his primary school lessons. Despite being utterly fed up with his headmaster’s duties, he had simply been unable to let go of his teacher’s streak. Erik, of course, has been more than happy to indulge him and simultaneously enable the mutant island’s children to pave themselves a path to higher education.

His back is hurting, his sixty-something years showing to take their tolls. Quietly, he thinks about all the times he’s dreamed of Erik and him not fucking up, so many years ago, but instead leading their lives at each other’s sides. Then, he dismisses the idea. It’s not worth thinking about, not when they can’t turn back time.

Erik stops at the fringe of bushes and trees bordering the clearing. Drops of dew still cling to the blades of glass, twinkling in the morning sun. There’s a cobweb just in front of them, between two branches of a young beech, shimmering as if it were made out of strands of pearls.

It’s all very beautiful, but still, Charles is wondering what on Earth Erik has led them here for.

Erik doesn’t meet his eyes when he kneels, bowing his head to lean his front against the chair’s armrest. Then, he mumbles, “You dreamed again. This night… about using your legs.”

Charles flushes. They haven’t really ever talked about it, there being too much searing guilt on Erik’s and too much uncertainty about whether to blame or not blame him on Charles’ side.

Now, though, the time seems to have come. It’s been two months since Erik took Charles to Genosha, and autumn has slowly sneaked around the corner. The season of golden nostalgia, of faded melancholia has arrived.

“Erik, I-”

Charles doesn’t get far. “I had an idea, Liebling, Licht meines Lebens, and… I want to lend you my legs,” Erik rushes out.

“_Lend me your_\- and how is that going to work?” Charles doesn’t want to sound harsh, he really doesn’t, but this is just ridiculous.

A constipated look on his face, Erik finally glances up at him. “And I thought you were smart. I’ll let you _tap into my nervous system_, Charles. So you can feel what I feel.” He begins unwrapping Charles’ legs from their quilt. “And as a bonus, you get a piggy-back ride.” His hands still. “If you want to.”

Charles just _has_ to smile. “You amaze me every day, old friend. Of course, I want to.”

And this is how Charles ends up with his arms wrapped around Erik’s shoulders (even though he reaches down to squeeze the man’s buttocks more often than not _just because he can_), delving into his mind and surfing along his synapses until he gets to his lover’s midbrain, having located the main nervous pathway for controlling the motor system somewhere around there.

It’s astounding, suddenly feeling the ground under his, or rather Erik’s, or simply _their_ feet again. Only now that he experiences this haptic quality for the first time in decades, the wetness, the tickling grass, the cold slide of skin on earth, he realises how much he has missed it. And he’s just a bit afraid. Afraid that it will get him addicted.

Then, Erik starts to run, and every rational thought is defenestrated by Charles’, no, Erik’s, no, _Charles’_ nerve endings going haywire.

Maybe he should think of how considerate a choice the clearing is to give someone a piggy-back ride. The terrain is relatively even, presenting an adhesive force high enough so Erik won’t slip and maltreat his and Charles’ old men’s bones, and the scenery, with the sunrise making mist waft up from the ground, is of a flagrant clarity.

But all that runs through Charles’ head, over and over again, is how _right _it feels.

The stretch in his thighs. The soil, cool, damp, soft, pressing up against his feet as they come to meet it. His ankles, his knees, moving. The morning air biting his cheeks and lungs, the alveoli filled with what can only be described as pure exertion. And joy.

He doesn’t throw his head back to laugh, doesn’t want to bring Erik off-balance, but he smiles, grins, giggles. Erik is smiling, too, he can feel it in the way the man’s cheeks feel against his’, the way his mind shimmers and swirls, the way his breaths are open-mouthed and definitely unsuited for this physical activity.

And, just for a glimpse, a heartbeat, Charles thinks he can see a shadow running alongside them. Easily keeping up with their strides. Giggling.

Grinning a blindingly white grin against blue scales.

Sometimes, dreams may come true. Even if only for a short time. And they make things easier. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me tell you: Someone you'll never be able to see again visiting your dreams is... more than comforting (to some at least).


	11. Day 11: Heroes’ Holidays

Charles watched as the bubbles of air emerging from his mouthpiece flitted up to the surface. Forty-three feet above him, the waves of the South Pacific roiled, the Australian sun shone, and Erik was tinkering with their boat’s motor (even though Charles had _told him not to_, because they had rented, but not _bought_ it).

He turned when the noise of metal clanging against metal filtered through the salty wetness to his eardrums. Cool water streamed in through the collar of his wetsuit, making his nipples tense up and goose bumps erupt on his torso. He shivered, then, with three strong breaststrokes, glid over to where Wanda was gesturing at a dark crack between the blocks of corals. She was moving her one hand in meandering waves, the other clutched close to her chest so as to not accidentally brush against the underwater flora and fauna.

Ah. A moray eel then.

Of course, Charles could have easily mind-linked all the divers, but there was too much flair to the good old underwater communication through hand signs. Also, it was just fun to learn them.

When he finally caught a glimpse of the animal’s snout – small, red with white freckles and tiny, sharp-looking teeth (not that he wanted to try if his assumption was correct) – Wanda had already moved on, swimming over to where Jubilee was floating in the water, letting air stream in and out of her vest to work on her taring, her mind honed in on the task.

As she went, Erik’s daughter laced the red of her powers into the water around her, cocooning herself in her telekinesis so she didn’t have to move a finger to glide through the blue.

Charles smiled slightly around his regulator. They were adults now, his and Erik’s children, just as the students they had started out with were. And they had grown up to be exceptional people.

At that moment, he felt so proud that he feared his heart would burst.

Taking deep breaths, he carefully paddled backwards, away from the cluster of corals. Green stony corals resembling brains, fiery red sea fans, all kinds of polyps of which he didn’t know the names, yellow, brown, orange. They surrounded him on all sides, and beneath him, just a few feet away, was the bottom of the sea, covered in fine white sand.

All around him… _life_. The tiny (or less tiny) flickers of fish appearing and disappearing in the caves of the Great Barrier Reef. Their small minds, incomprehensible to him, the rushing of his own controlled breathing, the dry air, faintly smelling of plastic, being fed into his lungs from the diving cylinder on his back. His unfeeling legs neither a hindrance nor an aid in the almost-weightlessness of underwater.

The ocean, the endless blue surrounding him, stretching on almost infinitely.

It made him feel alive. Every single bit of this extraordinary place.

Something touched his shoulder. He turned his head to see Armando there, gills trembling every now and then, his mouth opening to speak.

“Professor. I think there’s someone you should meet.”

Charles was time and time again amazed by his first student’s mutation. Even his vocal cords could transform so he was able to articulate himself clearly, even to human ears underwater.

Charles lifted his hand, thumb and forefinger forming a circle, then followed Armando as the man turned gracefully and glid around a corner of the reef. Just to be sure, he checked his dive computer at his left wrist, controlling how much time he had left and if he wasn’t exceeding the depth limit that was set for his level of diving skills.

They had already been underwater for twenty-five minutes. Shortly before turning the edge of corals Armando had disappeared behind, he stilled and reached for his air pressure gauge. _Still about fifty bars left._ He could go on for maybe twenty minutes more before having to begin his dive upwards if he considered the time for decompression stops.

Jubilee paddled past him, her scuba fins bending as she moved her feet up and down, up and down. She was clutching one of the underwater cameras they had lent from their PR department for this trip, eagerly shooting pictures of schools of fish, delicate prawns, anemones and just about anything that looked interesting enough to appear in the yearly schoolbook of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters as well as in the X-Men Association’s monthly magazine.

Finally, and with a bit more distance from the reef than his student so his hands didn’t break off any corals, Charles rounded the reef jutting out- and found the three other divers floating just a few feet over a blacktip reef shark that was unsuspectingly gliding along the fine-grained sand towards a gap in the blocks of colourful underwater chalk structures.

_Over here, Dad_, Wanda called out to him. _Come over here! _

_What are you up to now_, Charles sent back, with just a dash of consternation, but obeyed anyway.

A few well-coordinated breaststrokes later, he was directly over the shark (at a safe distance, mind you), only to glance up and into the lens of Jubilee’s camera.

_Smile for a pic with Paps!_ Even under her regulator, he could see Wanda grin.

He gestured for his student to wait, then took out his own mouthpiece, continually letting a flurry of bubbles escape, and reached out for the hazy thoughts of the being below him.

It didn’t feel like Erik at all. Erik’s mind was clearly structured, warm and inviting, filled with memories of Charles and their children and their school. It was nowhere near to the predatory fixation, the sluggishness, the formless monotony of the shark. The toothy grin truly was the only common ground between the creature Charles had learned to love and the one he had learned to study and appreciate in its unblemished environment.

Still, he smiled, lips almost closed, eyes wrinkling under his diving goggles. And when the click of the camera travelled through the water to meet his ears, he wasn’t quite there anymore. His mind had gone up, up through the waves, the wooden deck of their boat, the air, and found Erik’s.

His husband startled at the touch, guilt slinking into his thoughts as he withdrew his powers from the ship’s electric, eco-friendly engine. _Everything alright down there, Liebling?_

_All’s great, darling. Just wanted to feel you. _

_Anytime, Schatz._ Erik left the ship motor at peace and returned to slicing up a watermelon. _Anytime... _

And as Jubilee snapped picture after picture, slowly, slowly, Charles’ smile turned real.

After a forty-minutes-dive, they had to come up for air.

Raven helped them with heaving their equipment on board, air tank, buoyancy compensator jacket, fins, snorkels, goggles, while Erik went around serving tea, orange juice and watermelon slices to restore the water they had lost by breathing through their mouths constantly. Kurt, Raven’s son, mostly did nothing, just went to bamf over the surface of the sea occasionally, only teleporting back on board shortly before hitting the waves.

Charles, neoprene suit pulled down to his waist, sat on one of the benches, nursing a cup of earl grey between his fingers until he could get his hands on Erik again (not literally, there were people around, he just wanted to talk).

Finally, his husband walked over to him and sat, nibbling at a piece of watermelon in a more than suggestive manner.

“Stop it.” But Charles smiled as he said it.

“G’day you too. Bothered?” Erik grinned. “Next time I’m coming down there with you.”

“Oh, you should, it’s _fantastic_. And we’ve still got three more days.” Charles took a sip of his tea, immediately regretting it because it was scolding against his cool, salt-coated lips. “Ow. And on that note, how is our division doing in the outback? Do they have the rabbit population under control yet? And how’s Storm at the Amazon, is the forest fire down?”

Even before Erik sighed, he knew he had said the wrong thing. “_Charles_. We’ve decided to take this week off for a reason, and it’s not even a _whole week_, it’s _four days_! You need to get your mind off your projects.” He held up a hand, silencing Charles’ burgeoning protest. “And yes, I’m aware that the X-Men are now fighting pollution, deforestation and climate change, too, but it’s all going well. No need to stress yourself.”

A commotion at the rear end of the ship, towards the diving platform, saved them from an argument (well, for now, since it was a good opportunity for rough activities in bed when they were back in their accommodations at the Australian coast).

“Nooo, don’t delete it!” Wanda sounded very much devastated.

“But it’s completely blurred,” came Jubilee’s exasperated voice.

Charles leaned back against the railing. “And what are you lot up to, if I may ask?”

“You may,” Kurt giggled and, with his grin the exact copy of his mother’s, bamfed over to perch on the bench beside his uncle. In his curious hands was the underwater camera.

“Give it back,” Wanda squealed, momentarily forgetting that she and her cousin weren’t little kids anymore.

“Is that…” Erik frowned. “Charles, have you been cheating on me?”

“Hah, I told you the shark had the exact same grin as Paps on that photo!” Wanda, triumphant.

“Alright, I don’t care, just don’t send it to the yearbook editors.” Jubilee, exasperated. “It would look really bad in my portfolio.”

“Honestly, though,” Erik mumbled while sitting down beside Charles, one arm slung around his husband’s waist, “you aren’t considering replacing me just because I’m forcing you to indulge yourself occasionally?”

Gently, Charles took hold of Erik’s hand, casually ignoring the “Ugh, yuck” and the bamf coming from Kurt. “You are all I ever wanted, and all I’ll ever need. _No one_ could even come close to replacing you.” And he leaned in for a kiss.

Erik tasted a bit like watermelon, a bit like the clammy sea breeze. And very much like himself.

_No one will ever replace you. _

Somewhere in front of them, Armando was laughing, and Raven was making barfing sounds. They graciously ignored it. Ignored the shouting of the other mutants, the grumbling of the engine as it spluttered to life (somehow with fewer difficulties than before), the rocking of the boat as it turned to home in on the coast.

It was just them, and the endless gold of the sea as the sun slowly sunk behind the horizon.

_No one. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't been scuba-diving for more than a year (T.T) so please ignore any inaccuracies concerning the consumption of air during a certain timeframe.


	12. Day 12: Anniversary (of Nothing)

The very moment he heard their apartment’s door fall closed on their shared Friday afternoon off work, Erik knew something was not quite right.

He was just tiredly flicking through the book he was trying to read while sprawled on their couch as his husband wheeled into the room. Charles Xavier, renowned professor at the University of Oxford, was currently hiding something behind his wheelchair’s backrest, and Erik was unable to tell if it was the cool autumn breeze or the excitement that had painted his cheeks adorably red.

“How was work today, dear?” Instead of immediately going to manoeuvre around the kitchen to brew himself a tea, Charles remained conspicuously sat in the middle of their living room, smiling that beautiful smile at Erik.

Well, it wouldn’t save him now. “I’m _waiting tables_, Charles. There’s not much to talk about.” He sat up, planting his feet firmly on their parquet floor. “You though seem to have something to tell. And don’t lie, I know when you do that. It’s my secondary mutation.”

Charles flushed further, if that was even possible. “Well…” And without another word, he whipped out an enormous bouquet of red roses.

The transparent paper the flowers were wrapped in rustled. Stray raindrops sparkled on the petals like diamonds on deep red velvet. A round Max Havelaar logo was stuck on the bow that held it all together, and Erik could practically smell the expensive extravagance oozing from the whole thing.

Finding no words, he took the gift from Charles’ hands and brushed the flowerheads tenderly, then buried his nose in them. They didn’t smell like the roses in his mother’s garden did – soft, sweet, overall lovely – no, they smelled artificial, from the flower preservatives the florists probably used to keep them fresh. He’d most likely just inhaled a lungful of poison. But he didn’t care.

Charles had _bought him flowers_.

Pulling his lover’s metal wheelchair closer, he leaned forward and kissed those red, red lips. And then he kissed them again and again, and his husband slung his arms around Erik’s waist as he awkwardly stumbled from the sofa and onto Charles’ lap. They continued like this for a long time, not one of them caring to look at the clock, until they had to draw back for air.

“So, what is the reason for this beautiful present, Geliebter?” Erik whispered into Charles’ ear, making the other man shiver. “Did you do something I have to punish you for?”

His husband chuckled. “Not quite, my dear. I…” And that’s when cluelessness took over his features. “Uh. I guess it’s one for one of our anniversaries?”

“Charles, Schatz, you’re far too young and your memory far too eidetic to get Alzheimer’s already. You bought the flowers for a reason.” Erik buried his hands in Charles’ soft, fluffy hair and began massaging his scalp. Maybe he could get something out of this, now that they were already on it.

“Stop it, you, I heard that.” Though protesting, Charles didn’t pull away. Then, his face lit up. “Oh. I know. I got those for our Anniversary of Nothing.”

Erik’s turn to be confused. “Anniversary of noth- Charles, did one of your students put something in your lunch again?”

“No, Erik.” A disapproving frown. “And it’s Nothing with a capital N.” Charles’ hands wandered over Erik’s hips to squeeze his ass playfully, then squirreled back to lay on his waist again as the man looked up, blue eyes wide and honest. “I just think I should indulge you for a bit. Or for an afternoon, to be exact. You’ve taken a sabbatical from engineering to follow me to Oxford for one whole year, and you’re working in a coffee shop when I’m a guest lecturer at the university – not that working as a waiter is a bad job, but it’s below what you’re used to – and I feel like I owe you something.” He grinned. “Also, you should be rewarded for your efforts in bed and just for being the man you are.”

He had to add _And for being the man I love._ in their heads, lips already reclaimed by Erik’s.

That afternoon, they didn’t get out of their apartment until five, but all that counted was that they managed in the end.

First, Charles dragged Erik to the History of Science Museum, knowing that the metallokinetic loved to run his powers over the exhibits there – ancient globes, chronometers, surgical instruments and so on, all of them unique in their alloys’ composition – and that he would never admit it out loud. Also, he liked that Erik liked to levitate his wheelchair up and down the stairs, startling baseline humans and even mutants as they went.

Afterwards, they wandered through Blackwell’s Norrington Room, the largest single room for selling books. Charles could not resist the newest specs case with the periodic table on it (“You don’t even wear glasses, Charles.” “No, but I will, Erik, reading glasses for when my sight starts to deteriorate with age!”) and Erik had to pry it from his hands to pay for it. As payback (literally as well as figuratively), Charles bought him the metal paperweight in the shape of a magnet that Erik had been eyeing since they had first visited the bookshop one month ago.

Their little shopping escapade was followed by tea and cake for Charles respectively coffee and cake for Erik in the Bodleian Library’s entrance hall, and when they finally made their way back to their tiny terraced house – Charles’ wheelchair dangerously hobbling over the cobblestones and Erik time and time again distracted by Oxford’s beautiful architecture rich in ornate spires and sandstone – they were both utterly drained. Utterly drained, and happier than they’d been in weeks. Neither of them had noticed, but the English life and weather had been taking their toll on them.

Erik’s hand rested lightly on Charles’ shoulder as the professor wheeled along, occasionally greeting a student he knew from his lectures. Grey clouds hurried along in the sky, golden autumn leaves followed them on the ground. It was getting colder from day to day, and Erik made a mental note of buying Charles a new scarf lest his husband once again forgot to take proper care of himself.

“Oh, thank you ever so much, darling.” Charles’ eyes crinkled funnily at the corners as he smiled up at Erik. “I can _guarantee_ you that I would have forgotten about it.”

“I should take up knitting,” Erik mused. “Would be cheaper than paying for your new scarves all the time, you tend to forget them everywhere.”

Charles took Erik’s hand in his and squeezed it. “Then you should knit yourself some gloves, too, your fingers are like icicles.”

Erik couldn’t with it anymore, he just couldn’t. Abruptly, he came to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk. When Charles stopped in his tracks, just a few feet in front of him and visibly confused, he walked up to his beautiful, handsome, lovely husband, bent down and braced himself on the wheelchair’s armrests so he could easily gaze into those endless sky eyes.

“Charles.”

“Erik?”

“I love you so much I could rip the world apart. Thank you for this amazing afternoon, and please let me fix you the tortellini in sage sauce that you like so much for dinner.”

Charles giggled. Charles threw his head back and laughed. And when he had calmed down, he took Erik’s face in his hands and gave him an Eskimo kiss. “I’ll graciously ignore that first part and say yes. Now let’s get inside, before we freeze to death out here.”

So, they did. And late, late in the night, after they’d eaten and collapsed on the couch and watched a rerun of Downtown Abbey, Charles turned his head in Erik’s embrace and kissed him, sweet, tender, a bit like rose petals.

“Let’s do this again sometime. Our Anniversary of Nothing,” Erik sighed.

Charles smiled, and just before he drifted off to sleep, he mumbled, “Yeah. Let’s. And Erik?”

The spoken-to hummed.

“I love you so much.” _So much I could rip the world apart. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me if my writing seems awkward in this one, but I'm tired. Enjoy anyway <3


	13. Day 13: Children (Yes, We Will Manage, Charles)

All of a sudden, Charles’ heart felt heavy.

He had just come home from work, wheeled into their living room to pick up a kiss from his husband, and Erik, sat on the couch with his laptop, had slammed said device shut so fast the plastic case had creaked.

What had he been doing in the net? Charles asked himself. They didn’t have secrets from each other, the day of their wedding they had promised each other unveiled honesty, but now Erik perched there, halfway of the couch as if his animal brain had considered fleeing, guilt in his eyes. Charles didn’t even need to read his mind to understand something beyond his comprehension was going on.

The worst-case scenario came to his mind. Or rather the worst-case _scenarios_. In his sleepless hours, he’d had enough time to think it, or them, through, again and again. That one possibility. That one probability, that one future event that wasn’t as unlikely as he would have wanted to make himself believe. And now the time had come.

Erik had been cheating on him, or had through another way discovered that there was so much better to find on Earth than Charles, and had decided to leave him.

In his wheelchair, with his useless legs, with his dead lap, Charles felt sick.

“Liebling.” Erik, visibly forcing himself to relax, was frowning at him. “What’s the matter?”

Charles heaved a shaky sigh. He was not going to cry (and then there remained the small, insignificant, highly irrational hope that his worries were ungrounded). “Erik… what exactly were you looking at on that laptop?”

His heart sank further at his husband’s cheeks flushing red, even though he should have anticipated it. He was a cripple, a special snowflake, a telepath. In actuality, it already should have been a mystery to him that Erik stayed so long, would even go so far as to _marry_ him.

Finally, Erik spoke up, not quite meeting Charles’ eyes. “I… It was supposed to be a surprise. For our dinner with Raven and co. on Saturday. I was just organising things, looking up stuff.” And then he stood from the couch, came over to kneel beside Charles’ wheelchair and take his husband's hand, holding on tight. “But I could see you worry from over there. You’re beating yourself up again, aren’t you? About the whole ordeal with how you can’t walk?” Reaching up, he tenderly brushed a stray tear from Charles’ cheek. “I’m not like _the others_, Charles, Schatz. Whatever they said about you and their relationship with you, it’s wrong. _So wrong_. And I want to spend the rest of my days with you and… I want to have children _with you_.”

Just for a heartbeat, Charles felt numb. Then, he let out a rather undignified, squeaky “Beg your pardon?”

Erik’s lips widened in a slight smile. “I thought we should adopt a child. Or two, or more.”

“I- Erik, I-” Oh dear, was he seriously having trouble breathing? “But how? I’m in a wheelchair, and we both work- And Erik, I’m really not sure I would be a good father!” Still, he clasped Erik’s hands in his, nervous, excited, incredulous. _Children. With his beautiful husband_.

It was simply too good to be true.

“Mäuschen, if Raven and Irene manage with Anna Marie 24/7, _and Kurt_ on every weekend, we’ll manage, too.” Erik’s grin could only be described as manic. “Just imagine: children’s birthdays, Hanukkah and Christmas with real gifts, and family holidays. And I can work part-time, and you’ve been overworking yourself with your additional lectures, anyway. And just… _bringing up a small human_, Charles, preparing them for _life_.”

Charles was crying in earnest now, small, wet drops of pure joy, and if he was not mistaken, Erik’s eyes were glinting, too. He found himself unable to speak, too overwhelmed to articulate _anything_, the surprise, the love, the excitement.

_Lovelovelove you, yes, Erik dear, please let’s have children, a whole school of them. _

_Yes, Charles, yes. Yes, a thousand times. _

In the end, they started out with one.

On an orphanage’s website, they had discovered a mutant girl, barely seven years old. Every prior adoption attempt had failed, and still the authorities didn’t seem to give up the hope of placing her in a caring family environment. She was a telepath with telekinesis, predicted to be an omega-level.

The very moment Charles had finished reading her life’s story to Erik, they locked eyes and nodded.

Three months later, little Jean Grey moved in with them. Though timid and easily startled, she quickly eased into their lives (or they eased into hers, all depends on your point of view really), and both men felt like it had never been different, like they had been parents all their life. And every time Jean would smile, or even giggle – though this was rare in the very first weeks – Erik looked at Charles in his _Told You So_ way, and Charles could do nothing but unashamedly grin back at his husband, thinking, _Yes, yes, I know, and I couldn’t be happier_.

Only five years later, their eldest daughter left elementary (with her high grades inherited from her Dad, as Erik would tease Charles) and started middle school. At the same time, Charles and Erik decided to move from their flat in the middle of NYC to the Xavier family estate in order to foster as many children as they possibly could.

Sometimes, Erik would jokingly call it their _very own school_, and Charles – the twins, David or little Lorna on his lap, because the kids loved to be chauffeured around in his wheelchair – would simply smile and blow his beautiful, amazing husband a kiss.

And in the (relative) privacy of their minds, he would say, _Thank you for being such a lovely Papa, and for sharing this with me_.

Without hesitating, Erik would send back, _Thank _you_ for being such an awesome Dad, I couldn’t have wished for more_.

And really: they couldn’t have wished for more. Because they found that they had it all. 


	14. Day 14: Aller guten Dinge sind drei (And That Goes for Proposals, Too)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good things come in threes.

It would have been perfect.

Charles had had everything planned out meticulously. Their favourite table in their favourite Italian restaurant, with two covers, one slim, tasteful candle perched between them and a bottle of fine Champagne, and all of it hidden in a cosy corner, away from the public eye so no one but the waiter would know what exactly was going on.

And what was going on was that Charles wanted to propose to Erik.

They’d been together for five years now, five wonderful, amazing, mind-blowing years with his equally wonderful, amazing, mind-blowing (um, both literally and figuratively) boyfriend, and they both knew they just waited for one of them to suggest they get married. Hell, when they could, they would show all the homophobes what true love looked like.

First things first, Charles had commissioned the ring for Erik, a simple band of iron, the metalbender’s favourite plaything. Then, he’d arranged their date night, pleading that he just wanted to treat his dearest, and indeed, the evening had been a success. Over the candle’s dancing flame, they had lovingly gazed into each other’s eyes, lovingly shared an enormous lasagne that could only be described as Garfield’s dream while lovingly holding hands over the tabletop, and in the end, Charles had lovingly (and quite inconspicuously) reached into his suit pocket to fish around in the cluster of paper clips and small change that served as camouflage for the engagement ring.

His hand had come up empty, he’d realised that he had forgotten the token at home and, as a consequence, he’d flushed from the roots of his hair to the tip of his toes. Of course, Erik, the caring darling he was, had asked for the reason of his almost-fiancé’s distress.

Charles had snippily responded, “Oh, nothing, nothing at all, and why do I have to tell you everything, anyway?”

And that had just pretty much ruined everything: the evening, Erik’s mood, and Charles’ even more so. _If stupidity induced pain_, he had thought to himself, _I would be writhing and screaming on the floor right now_.

They went home, Charles found the ring on the bedside table and just so managed to squirrel it away before Erik saw (or felt), and that was it. Actually, Charles was lucky Erik was so into angry makeup sex, or their foul mood would have permeated the whole of the following week.

There was just one thing bugging him… He didn’t get around to proposing again. Another opportunity simply never arose.

Sometimes, Charles was so_ fed up_ with himself.

It would’ve been perfect.

Erik had had everything worked out, up into the last detail. In the afternoon, he’d abducted Charles early from work (who needed those essays to be graded so soon, anyway?), taken him on a stroll through the park to feed the ducks, and as dawn devoured the sky, he’d been humming a German Schlager in the kitchen while cooking his Liebling’s all-time favourite food, omelette with peas and mashed potatoes, all of it flavoured with gravy (except the omelette of course, Erik wasn’t a philistine).

In the omelette, the platinum ring for his beloved soon-to-be fiancé had waited for its moment to shine. Erik would just have to make sure Charles cut his food lest he bite out a tooth on the engagement token.

It had never come that far.

Apparently, somewhere in the depths of their apartment building, someone had been cooking, too. And that someone had to be a _complete idiot_, because just as Erik had wanted to transfer the food from the pans and pots to the plates, the damn fire alarm had gone off.

Of course, Charles, already sat comfortably at the table reading a book, had been the first to wheel for the flat’s door. He was a high-level telepath in a wheelchair after all and really, _really_ didn’t need people panicking around him, and Erik had agreed wholeheartedly.

They’d taken the stairs, Charles floating in front of Erik, and on the street, they’d both gotten a blanket from the fire brigade and a hot cup of tea from a nearby sandwich joint whose owner apparently had a heart of gold.

There, on the wet pavement, bathed in the golden glow of street lanterns and sat on his beautiful boyfriend’s lap, Erik had realised he’d forgotten to turn off the stove.

It had already been difficult concealing his plans for a proposal from his telepath. Shrouding his self-hatred reaching a crescendo was an entirely new feat, though.

In the end, they had been able to go back up into their apartment a few anxiety-inducing hours later. The first thing Erik had done was walk into their kitchen, open a window and pull the charred remains of what sould have been their engagement dinner from the stove, proceeding with prodding and picking at the entirely blackened omelette until he’d safely removed the ring and stored it in the back pocket of his khaki slacks.

The instant to finally, _finally_ bind Charles to himself forever had vanished as fast as it had arrived.

They had had great stress-relief sex afterwards, though. But still, it had done nothing to console Erik in his grief about his and someone else’s endless, infinite, immeasurable idiocy.

Fuck fire alarms, and people who try to cook their own dinner.

In the end, it wasn’t perfect at all.

It was far more than that.

About three months after the mysteriously pointless (in Erik’s memory) date night, and about five weeks after the weirdly romantic (in Charles’ memory) home-cooked and -burned dinner, they were ambling around the cobblestone streets of Düsseldorf on a visit to Erik’s darling mother, Edie, when suddenly, a desire for ice cream manifested in both their minds. Which, considering the hot summer sun baking the city’s cement into something almost liquid, wasn’t that much of a surprise.

They quickly tracked down an ice cream stall, choose a scoop both (strawberry for Charles, mint with chocolate chip for Erik) and heard the tinkle of metal on stone as something circular fell out of Erik’s jeans pocket and onto the sidewalk.

Obviously, he hadn’t paid much attention to what kind of spare change he was dragging out of his pocket with his powers, and now they were staring at the engagement ring glinting on the floor in front of the ice cream stall.

Erik had good reflexes. So good that he bent down immediately, swiped up the token, got on one knee and panted out, “Charles Xavier, will you marry me?”

But Charles had already fumbled for his wallet, rummaged around and finally come up with the platinum ring’s almost-twin. “Erik Lehnsherr, will you marry me?”

In perfect unison, they exploded into laughter, there, on a German sidewalk in front of a rather bewildered ice cream vendor and some random pedestrians, and barely managed to squeeze out a “Of course, you idiot!” at each other.

After some awkward attempts at simultaneously sliding their rings on each other’s fingers, they finally succeeded. The ice cream seller, a zappy mutant lady covered in iridescent feathers, let them have their ice cream for free, and as they returned to Mama Lehnsherr’s modest townhouse in the suburbs, Edie nearly strangled them in her motherly, tearful embrace.

And just before he drifted off in the night, after a very intense session of love-making while staring at each other’s engagement bands, Erik grumbled into Charles’ ear, “Aller guten Dinge sind drei.”

Charles, equally tired, only managed to breathe back a “And that goes for proposals, too,” before the soft realm of dream engulfed him.

That night, both of them slept with smiles on their faces. And finally, _finally_, with an engagement ring on their finger.


	15. Day 15: A Birthday Celebration (And a Promise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Far too long-winded, I know, but I'm feeling cosy rn and wanted to treat myself.

The day on which the School for Gifted Youngsters – Professor Charles Xavier’s very own, very beloved pet project – celebrated its first birthday came with clouds, the sky grey and bleak. Between an exceptionally late brunch and a special coffee-and-cake (tea-and-cake for the minors) event in the afternoon, the students pressed their noses flat on the windowpanes and staged races between raindrops. Charles, for once not having any classes to teach, used the opportunity to park his wheelchair in front of the fireplace in the common room, all too glad to read a book or two to his children when they choose to timidly slink over to him.

All in all, it was a rather cosy affair. A warm buzz filled the mansion on Graymalkin Lane, the few students it had acquired since its opening chattering away happily, not even spending a thought on the fact that they had been there for one whole year now. Most of their families had been more than relieved to give them away to a seemingly competent boarding school when Charles had located them through the means of Cerebro, and he didn’t want to know if it was because the parents feared for their children’s safety or for their own.

At least _he_ and Alex and Hank and Sean and Darwin had welcomed the young mutants with open arms, glad to be able to provide them with an accepting home.

He was just helping a child up onto his dead, numb lap (sometimes he still woke up in the night, trying to move his legs just to find he couldn’t), when something brushed his mind. It was a light touch, _feathery-light_, almost non-existent.

But it was there.

With a smile and an apology, he promised the boy with cat eyes that he would read to him later, then wheeled over to the wide window.

It was like a surreal painting: Out in the mist, against the backdrop of the barren blandness of an early spring, a line of figures was loosely spread out on the lawn. It was as though nature had laid the focus specifically on them, blending out the trees and the sky and the hedges in formless grey. Upright they strode, all six of them. Like a beautiful, terrifying mirage.

“Raven,” Charles breathed, his breath fogging up the glass, and all of a sudden, he felt like a little boy again, a little boy on Christmas Eve in anticipation of Santa Claus (he had both feared and loved the mythical figure, this he could recall).

Of course, they had held close contact with the Brotherhood, who had occasionally sent them hints about child mutants in distress who they couldn’t integrate in their resistance group. Get-well-cards had come in the mail, too, as well as merry Christmas and birthday wishes to all the School’s staff later on.

And _of course_, they had answered. Charles, him and the others, even Alex. Reluctantly at first, but they had seen the benefit, because who wouldn’t? Who could refuse their very own guerrilla group providing them with information that could save the lives of dozens of their species?

Also, there had been The Visit.

Emma and Charles had clashed. So had Alex with… well, pretty much every one of Erik’s followers, as well as their leader himself. Hank had just wistfully stared at Raven for the first half an hour, and Sean had disappeared up in his room, proceeded to break his window, and then the window frame.

Fortunately for all of them, Darwin had interfered with everyone’s arguing and sat them down around the kitchen table, serving tea and instant coffee whilst Charles had perched in his wheelchair, paralysed, speechless, as white as the linen he and Erik had last made love on (_so long ago already_). Raven had sent mental apology over mental apology towards him, until he couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t even take the void where Erik’s mind was supposed to be, and had wheeled out of the kitchen.

Or tried to.

Angel had been the first to apologise. Hands and wings clasped behind her back, she’d walked up to Darwin. “I’m sorry. I… I’m sorry for what happened to you, and because of me.”

Darwin hadn’t uttered a word. He had just set down the tea kettle and cup he’d been holding and opened his arms. Without hesitation, Angel had accepted the hug.

Raven and Hank had followed suit. Even Emma, cold, hard, impenetrable Emma Frost, had offered her hand to Charles, and he’d gladly taken it, knowing now that the only other telepath in the room didn’t mean any harm. Only Alex had glowered at pretty much everyone, at Azazel sending him an embarrassed wink, at Janos signing something neither of them had been able to understand. If an elephant was the definition of resentfulness, Alex certainly rivalled it with his own.

Charles had called Sean down, Erik had followed Armando into the kitchen to cook dinner, Alex had set the table and kept a wary eye on ‘the Prof’ putting the Brotherhood’s members at ease in the kitchen (he had refused to move them to the living room, his trust didn’t extend that far as to risk them brainwashing his kids).

They had eaten. Made awkward conversation and eye contact. Then washed up, all of them crowded into the kitchen that was quite spacious but not spacious enough for eleven full-grown mutants.

Finally, (sadly,) the Brotherhood had been shown the door, lingering in the entrance hall, until they’d grabbed a hold of whatever part of Azazel they could reach. In a puff of hellish smoke, they had vanished, all of them.

All of them but one.

Erik had stayed for the night, for an argument, a chess game, a heated, hurtful wrestle in the bedsheets. And for a reconciliation.

Charles would never, could never forget. But he would forgive, eventually, and until then, Erik was more than willing to prove he was worth it.

His wheels squeaked on the hardwood floor as Charles steered out of the living room, through the corridors and the floor-to-ceiling winter garden door, over the garden paths’ gravel he hadn’t come around to replacing with something wheelchair-friendly yet. There, on the fringe of the lawn, he stopped. Not even his sister visiting would drive him as far as getting stuck in muddy grass.

_Everything alright, Prof_? Darwin reached out to him.

Charles smiled. Out of all his fellow mutant supervisors’ projections, Darwin’s were the most pleasant. _Everything alright, Armando. Just maybe warn Alex that we’ve got… _visitors_, will you_?

All he received as a response was a sense of affirmation and a veiled _Oh shit_.

The mist was cold and clammy on his skin. He should have grabbed a cardigan before wheeling out in a simple dress shirt.

Raven drawing nearer distracted him from his cold-inducing actions, and then she was there, his sister, his beautiful sibling, in all her blue glory (and in a snug black trouser suit, bless her for not parading around her naked form). Before he could blurt out a word, she had stridden up to him and engulfed him in a mighty hug.

After about three minutes of intense cuddling, he had to wheeze out a “Raven, you’re smothering me,” and when she released him, he was sure his head was quite red. Oh well, totally worth it.

“Wow, Charles, you look so dapper!” She was now gripping his shoulders instead. “And good, better than when I last saw you-” And there, just a tiny bit of guilt tinted her voice violet – “and it’s your school’s birthday!”

“We just couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to celebrate,” came in a heavy Russian accent from behind her shoulder, and Charles saw Azazel with Janos hanging off his arm marching up to him.

Emma followed close behind, in pristine white fur that blessedly didn’t reveal too much of her curves. “Be glad I’m keeping an eye on the boys, sugar, or they would have brought their vodka to your children’s party.”

“Oh, I am grateful.” Charles smiled, taking a hold of Raven’s hands and stroking them. “Incredibly so, though I’m sure the boys wouldn’t have minded a drop or two. But alas, they have to teach classes tomorrow.”

Angel flitted over to him, just a few inches of the ground. “Hi Prof. How’s Darwin? And Sean, and Alex?”

“And Hank, on that note?” Raven added just a bit too inconspicuously.

“All of them are well.” Charles kept on smiling, wide, wider, he just couldn’t help it. And (he knew) the best was yet to come.

“Great news indeed.” Ah, and here it (or rather he) came. “We brought cake. Schwarzwäldertorte, without kirsch in it, mind you.” Erik, sleek, impeccably dressed (except for his ugly cape, what was it with that man and the colour magenta?) and wearing a slight curl of his lips, stepped forward. In his hands levitated a metal dome, apparently the container for the pastry. His head was bare.

“How thoughtful of you.” Without his conscious doing, Charles could feel his smile turn just a shade sweeter. Then, he tore his eyes from the grey-green-blue gaze in front of him, ignored the icy whisper of _Oh, a blind could have seen that, honey,_ in his head and addressed the whole of the Brotherhood. “Please, do come in. It’s drizzling out here, and we’ve got a fire and hot tea inside. And I’m sure the children will love to see you.”

Erik nodded. So, Charles turned and led them back to the mansion, eagerly being chatted up by Raven not moving from his side. And once they were inside, the children did indeed pounce on them immediately, finding comfort in knowing that there were more people like them out there, more people who fought for them, more people who _cared_. Even Emma, otherwise such inhibited a person, lowered herself amidst the ‘brats’, as she jokingly described them to Charles, and told them Russian folk tales, all the while complemented by Azazel lingering near the fireplace. Armando and Sean were preparing tea, coffee and cake in the kitchen, soon joined by Angel and Janos, and Raven had turned from Charles to draw Hank into a winding conversation.

Only Alex had retreated into a corner, his favourite students in tow, his eyes shooting daggers as soon as a member of the Brotherhood even so much as glanced at him.

Well, for once, Charles couldn’t be bothered. Erik had handed the gâteau to the kitchen and was now all ears (and hands, _wandering_ hands, barely concealed by the tablecloth, and there were _kids_ around, but it wasn’t like they were shagging in the middle of the floor).

“What a wonderful place you have built for these little mutants,” Erik murmured, amazed at the children playing on the carpet or laying in tangled heaps on the sofas, reading.

“Thank you,” Charles replied smoothly, “and thank you for making it possible. Your activism has called parents’ attention to my school, we get new students daily. They just don’t want their kids to end up like you.”

The other man smirked, fingers tracing patterns on the fabric just right above Charles’ navel. “Oh, what a flattering compliment. But you do not mind your evil villain friend paying you a visit, do you?”

“Certainly not.” Suddenly, Charles felt very hot, and he had to rein in his thoughts, lest the adults in their vicinity noticed something off in the lower regions of their bodies.

He was saved by Sean waltzing out of the kitchen, precariously balancing three plates with cake on each hand respectively arm.

“Oh,” Erik purred and grinned, “it seems we have to delay our conversation.”

_Then I can’t wait for later_. With his best innocent smile, Charles took the cup of tea Angel was handing him with a smirk.

_Neither can I, Mäuschen_. Erik didn’t bother hiding his grin, predatory, hungry, directed only at Charles. _Neither can I_.

They didn’t have to wait long. After an excruciating few minutes of wolfing down their pieces of sticky sweetness, Raven had come up to them and, with a dirty look, ushered them out of the room. “The poor children,” she’d thrown after them just as the door fell closed behind their backs.

Then, there was no holding back anymore.

_Months_, Charles whined as Erik manhandled him up the stairs, _months since your last visit_.

He felt as though Erik was devouring him with his kisses, on the bedspread, chasing the cake’s aftertaste with his tongue. _Sorry, been busy fighting for mutantdom_, was all he could extract from the jumble of Erik’s thoughts, and then it didn’t matter anymore, anyway.

Erik was gentle. Erik was rough. Erik was all Charles could have ever wished for, riding him like he’d missed him, and he had, as he assured the telepath over and over, he had. He had missed him in his head, in his arms, in him.

Charles’ throat was clogged up, so he just grabbed Erik’s thighs and squeezed, and he knew Erik understood.

Afterwards, they lay in bed for a long time, Erik’s head under Charles’ chin. Nothing else was there but them, the warmth of the fireplace, the mist outside the window covering the grounds.

_I wish you wouldn’t have to leave. _Charles carded his fingers through Erik’s hair.

Erik grunted. “Believe me, I _wish_ I didn’t have to right now. How will it look if I limp while kidnapping some rich politician?” Then he looked up and seemed to notice that Charles was not amused, not at all. “One day, I’ll come back.” His smile turned his features all soft, all malleable. “And I’ll stay.”

Charles could feel his heart soar in his throat. _You will, Erik? Promise?_

“I will.” Erik stretched up for a kiss. They ended up prolonging it for quite some minutes.

But just before Erik lay his head back again, relaxed, loose-limbed, like a predator tired of running, Charles could feel something poke his mind. And that something was one simple, unbelievable word.

_Promise_. 


	16. Day 16: The Very First Krakoan Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first take on comic canon. Please do not skin and grill me if I get something wrong!

“Charles, very sorry to disturb you, but it seems my future spouse needs help with his tie.”

Charles Xavier, one of the many founders of the mutant nation Krakoa, looked up from his perch on an enormous root to see two of his former pupils standing before him. Jean Grey and Scott Summers, both in casual human clothing, but still dressed rather formal for their current domicile.

“Why, I’ll be more than glad to help.” He got up, stretched his legs, and through the blue of Cerebro, Cyclops’ visor shimmered violet when he walked up to the boy and reached for his neck. A few twists, and his nimble fingers had turned the velvety band into a neat bow. “There you go, Scott.” He let a smile take hold of his lips.

Cyclops, already not quite on the same planet anymore, grinned. “Thanks, Prof. Now, if you will excuse us, we’re about to go and get married.”

“Nothing would be further from me than to hold you back any longer on this happiest day of yours, my darlings.”

No further words were exchanged, but Scott was the first to go in for a hug. The rough fabric of his wine-red tuxedo scraped against Charles’ black, sleek catsuit, his breath warm and humid on the telepath’s neck. Charles hugged back, tightly, just as a mother would hug her children.

Then came Jean. He had to stand on the tip of his toes so he could kiss her cheek and let himself be drawn in close against her body clad in green-and-gold patterns, flowing and ebbing like the summer sun. The sweet perfume of her bridal bouquet – Krakoan flowers interwoven with poison ivy – dwindled in his nose.

“Thanks, Dad,” she whispered in his ears, and he smiled wider. There they went, his children, safe and sound and ready to live their own lives within his arms. No feelings of loss. Just of uninhibited joy for his lovely former students and comrades in battle.

Murmuring rose up from the clearing behind their backs. The couple turned and strode towards the Krakoan altar where Nightcrawler waited already, tail flicking nervously at being faced with his duty to unite two mutants in marriage.

Stealthily, Charles reached up under his helmet and wiped a small tear from the corner of his eye. He knew he had lived this once already, but it was incredible still. And this time, it would be alright. The two lovers wouldn’t be separated by human fear, by tragedy. Not anymore, never again.

There was an uproar from the crowd gathered in Krakoa’s central square, and there were thousands of minds, mutant minds all of them, united in love for two of their kind. _We share many bonds_, it came from somewhere in his memory, _but only few of them are stronger than the love we all share for Scott and Jean_.

Maybe that was why he only heard the soft fall of boots on leaves behind him when he caught a glimpse of white by his side.

“Your daughter… Your children… They are beautiful.”

Refractions of light flitted over the bark of Krakoan trees as Magneto took his hands to his head, pulling off his helmet. His cape was slung over one arm so it didn’t drag in the dirt. _One disadvantage of white_, Charles thought and smirked, _you see every spot_.

Out loud he said, “They are wondrous indeed, _our_ children, Erik.”

He had had his hands folded neatly behind his back. Now, they were disentangled and caught in a warm grip. One arm slung around his hips, Erik pulled Charles in close.

Around them, the Krakoan woodlands teemed with little creatures and their cries. From seemingly out of nowhere, Erik produced a magenta blossom and tried tucking it into Charles’ portable Cerebro helmet.

“Wait.” The telepath reached up, slid off the device. “There we go.”

The flower found its place behind Charles’ ear, and his head sunk onto Erik’s shoulder.

Jean and Scott had made their way up the aisle formed by the crowd, now stood in front of the altar. Storm was there, Logan, Emma, Mystique. All of them smiled, save for the latter (in her head, glimpses of sightless eyes and bronze skin, and Charles pulled out before he could see more). The blue-skinned priest began his speech.

Erik rumbled. “Shall we go nearer? I can’t catch a word.”

They started forward. “Oh dear,” Charles whispered, “you should have changed, beloved. You look as though you intend to compete with the bride.”

“Maybe I do.” As inconspicuously as was possible, Erik nosed at Charles’ bare neck. “Just for a different prize.”

Finally, Kurt’s voice drifted over to them, now easily distinguishable. He’d tied the bride and groom’s hands together, using a blood-red sash, obviously reminiscent of an ancient tradition.

“This is to the sacred pact you make before the mutant community. This exclamation of eternal love, of undying pride and trust in each other, be it blessed by all of mutantdom assembled here today, for you are its children and safe in its heart, forever. Through chaos, through despair, through the darkest times may our hope carry you, united until dust is all that is left.”

Some had tears in their eyes. Erik certainly did, and in the last row, Charles leaned up and kissed them away.

Nightcrawler quivered, deeply moved, on his perch on the organically interwoven block of roots and sprouts. “We hereby pronounce you wed, equals in love and all that follows. You may now kiss.”

Marvel Girl and Cyclops leaned in and did just that, and then spiced it up with some fumbling. The crowd cheered, whooped, threw glitter and powers in the air. And as they walked off to the tables set up for the wedding banquet, Jean and Scott waved Logan over to follow them. Emma stalked after them not much later, Storm and Nightcrawler in tow.

“Looks like more than just two mutants will retire to the new Summers residence tonight…” Erik mused.

Charles poked him in the rips, lightly. “Don’t forget, it’s the law. We have to increase our population, and drastically at that.”

“What can _we_ do, then?” A kiss on closed lips. “Simulate the act? Say we just needed more exercise?”

“You’re a fertile bastard already.” The lights, the smell of food attracted them like a flame a moth. Charles gripped Erik’s biceps admiringly. “Exercising it is.”

Erik seemed happy enough with that answer. Then, his eyes widened, and he just so kept Jean’s bouquet from smashing into his chest.

“Well well, look at who gets married next.” Mystique sashayed past Magneto, shooting Charles a more than speculative look. “I wonder who may be the lucky one.” And as fast as she’d appeared, she was gone.

“I forgot they still toss the bouquet.” Erik grinned, rearranging the flowers that threatened to fall out of the wrapping paper. “I’m going to hang these up in our room to dry, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, not at all, dear.” Charles bowed his head to bury his nose in the blossoms, then in the crook of Erik’s neck. _Not at all_. 


	17. Day 17: Sharing Is Caring (And Not Only in Food Matters)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few minutes late in my time zone, but eh, proof-reading has to be done regardless.

Erik groaned. The kid sitting three tables further down in the middle school cafeteria had been nervously nestling with his fork for over seven minutes now, and the desire to murder him slowly, _intimately_, was taking on a more and more tangible form in Erik’s thoughts.

Eventually, he caved in and got up, levitating his tablet of food over to the blue-eyed, nerve-wracking boy.

“Is this seat free?”

The spoken-to looked up, surprise painting his face – a handsomely feminine face at that, as Erik couldn’t help thinking – and stuttered, “Ah, yes, sure!”

Erik sat. Erik picked up his fork and started eating, face down. Erik did not really know what exactly he was doing, chatting up a random stranger.

“So,” he mumbled between two bites, “why aren’t you eating your food? I could feel you picking at it from ten feet over.” At the boy’s incredible look, he balked. “Just asking because you fiddling with your metal fork is really annoying.”

A smile finally settled on the kid’s lips. “You’re a telekinetic?”

“Lowly metallokinetic, I’m afraid.” Was the boy a mutant, too? His vibrant eyes sure looked the part.

“Ah, yes.” A light blush settled on his vis-à-vis’ cheeks. “I’m a telepath. Not reading your mind, though, just… picking up on stray thoughts. Anyway, Charles Xavier, charmed to meet you.” He extended a hand.

Charmed. Erik didn’t know if he should laugh or frown. _Charmed._ Who even still used that word?

The dork in front of him, obviously. He let a smirk steal on his lips. “Erik Lehnsherr. You still haven’t answered my question.”

A heartbeat of Xavier flailing to remember, then, his face lit up. “Oh. Courgettes.”

“Whu?” For a moment, Erik forgot about his food.

The blush intensified. “Um. The cucumber thingies in the vegetable sides. I don’t like them.”

“Do you like the mushrooms? I don’t. We could swap?” Erik really didn’t know why he was so friendly to that Charles person, but right now, he couldn’t care less. He’d tasted blood (or rather, _courgettes_, he quite liked them).

Charles stared. Charles smiled. Charles nodded.

Little did they know that this was the beginning of a wonderful friendship… and so much more.

Seven years later, Charles was picking half-heartedly at Erik’s home-cooked dinner – vegetable ragout with mashed potatoes – half sprawled over their kitchen table and utterly sloshed (Erik knew because Charles tended to project in such a situation, and right now mild annoyance was making the hairs on his neck quiver).

“What’s the problem _now_, Charles?” Erik sighed. Lately, he was just so fed up with his roommate nagging him about everything he cooked or cleaned or said. He felt like he didn’t know the man anymore, the bright-eyed post-graduate who had been so hungry for knowledge that he wanted to go study genetics immediately and had dragged his best friend to live and learn with him (not genetics, mind you, engineering was more like it for Erik).

The telepath, wearing nothing but his fluffy white dressing gown, hair looking like he had been utterly shagged (and he _had _been, Erik knew because he hadn’t got to shut his eyes even _once_ during the last night), sighed. “Courgettes, Erik. You know I don’t like them, and you still put them in!”

Alright. Enough was enough. “Then maybe you should learn to cook for yourself, Xavier.” Erik set down his cup of black coffee. “Or get yourself a new roommate, or, even better, a personal cook. It’s not like you’re not stinking rich and could make better use of your time than to polish up your reputation as the campus slut.”

A low blow, he knew, but totally worth it. Then, he felt the fork stop its grating on the plate. Charles raised his sky-blue eyes (Erik didn’t know why, or how, but lately they just made his guts feel really really weird, and he didn’t want to find out the reason). “That, my friend, was the worst thing you could have possibly said.”

The hem of the bath robe rode up over his knees as he got up, and Erik couldn’t help staring just for one second. Charles’ skin was just so flawlessly _white_.

Now, the telepath strode up to him, a zucchini impaled on his fork, and only stopped a hand’s width from Erik. His breath came in spasms, his baby blues shooting daggers, brows knitted together in a frown. And the fact that he had to raise his chin to look into Erik’s eyes didn’t make it any less threatening. “Consider yourself lucky that I’ve set myself strict moral boundaries for my mutation, or you would be sneezing your brains out through your nose right now. Have you ever considered the reason I go pub crawling every bloody night?”

Erik couldn’t resist the perfect opportunity to have another dig at his ‘best friend’. “To take it up your fine British arse as many times as possible?”

The zucchini smacked against his chest, splattering ragout sauce all over his shirt. “You utter twit! You are a terrible man, and you are _right_, and I just want to take it up my arse from anyone because you so obviously want to remain a straight bloody virgin and I want to at least keep our friendship!”

Now, Erik knew liquor loosened people’s tongues. Yet, he had never heard of this resulting in anything good.

It seemed the world was once again out to prove him wrong.

Realization dawned on Charles’ face and he pressed out a squeaky “Oh fuck” at the exact same time at which Erik murmured “Is that the moment when we kiss and confess that we had a crush on each other for over ten years?”

In rapid succession, confusion, anger and relief flitted over his best friend’s features, and then he smirked. “If you want it to be, sure, why not?”

Erik smirked. “Well then…” And he leaned down and kissed those red, red lips he hadn’t known he had been dreaming about all the time, and Charles kissed back and pushed the jumble of joy, incredulity and lovelovelove that were his thoughts into Erik’s head, making him reel.

When they parted for air, the telepath smiled sweetly and showed Erik the martyred vegetable on his fork. “Now, about the courgettes… Still hungry?”

“Erik, please… Get up, get out, go eat something at the cafeteria or go home and shower and sleep.”

Charles’ voice from over on the hospital bed startled Erik out of an unpleasant semi-conscious state induced by his perching on one of the cheap plastic visitor chairs. He stretched, groaned at the creaking in his back, but didn’t move otherwise. “Charles. Has the nurse brought you your dinner? How are you feeling?”

One look at his husband – pale, haggard, so small (_too small_) against the white hospital sheets – and the tray on his lap reassured him. Everything was alright for now. He scooted his seat over to Charles’ bedside.

“Really, darling… You look terrible.” The telepath took his hand as soon as he could reach it. “Stop beating yourself up over this, get some rest.”

Erik couldn’t. He just couldn’t anymore, and the exhaustion of the last few days crashed in waves over him, burying him, pulling him down, and there was nothing but bleary blackness.

“I- But I shouldn’t have let you drive, you _told _me you were tired-” There was only so much Erik could do before his vision blurred and helpless sobs began wracking his body. Again. He’d lost track of his breakdowns. _I’m so sorry_, he projected, over and over again, his voice simply failed him, _sososo sorry, I wish it had been me_.

Charles just set the tray on the beside table and pulled Erik’s head onto his lap (_too cold, too motionless_), soothingly carding his fingers through his husband’s hair. “Oh, my love…” he whispered, and then fell silent except for, _I certainly do not wish for you to have been in my place in that bloody car_.

Minutes passed. Slowly, Erik calmed down, wiped the snot and tears of his face with the tissue Charles offered him and hoped that he did look at least one percent dignified.

Of course, Charles then had to say the worst thing he could possibly say. “Really, my dear boy. You can leave for a few hours, it’s not like I’ll get up and walk out of the hospital, anyway.”

He probably had intended for it to be a joke. Well, Erik didn’t think it was funny, not even a tad bit. “Yes, just go on talking about you being fucking _paralysed_, if you want a damn flood in your room, verdammt!” Oh, and his eyes were watering again. Angrily, he wiped at them, already feeling them swell up.

It seemed Charles had got the message. “I… sweetheart, I’m sorry. But it’s a reality we have to face, and you know we have everything planned out already, the modifications we have to make to our quarters, to the school, and you know our children are more than happy to help. We’ve got such a strong family, we’ll manage, you know.” He gripped Erik’s hands tight in his, rubbing some warmth back in them. “My beloved Erik: David brought over his special Ratatouille today, the twins are coming over for a visit tomorrow, and Lorna will drop by on Saturday. Raven, Jean, Ororo, they’re all visiting, and I’ll never be alone because there are nurses present all around the clock. Please, go look after yourself, do it for me.”

Tiredness. Yes, maybe a coffee wouldn’t be a bad idea, or a sandwich from the hospital’s cafeteria. Erik sniffled, and Charles saw his chance and pressed a kiss on his husband’s forehead.

“Alright.” Erik squeezed Charles’ hands one last time, then got up, grinding his teeth at his protesting joints. “I’ll be back in a min.” Still, he hesitated, lingered by the door.

Meanwhile, Charles had casually ignored his hospital-issue dinner, fished a Tupperware container from his bedside table and was now grinning at him like mad (and very much in love, judging from the pleasant little buzz caressing Erik’s own thoughts). “Oh, and my darling, I just wanted to thank you for being with me through all the good times and bad times, aaand, as soon as you’re back-” He lifted the box’s lid to show Erik the steaming contents which very much resembled Ratatouille – “for saving my spoilt palate from the incongruous taste of my arch-nemesis, also known as courgettes.”

Erik shook his head. Erik smiled, just a bit. And for once, Erik knew what he was doing when he turned, closed the door behind him and started down the corridor: He was just _there_ for the one man he truly loved.

Charles’ smile stayed with him all the way down the hallways, and somehow, despite everything that had happened (_all of it horrible, nauseating, utterly awful_), he felt alright. 


	18. Day 18: Music (Is What Unites Our Hearts)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am too lazy to figure out how to insert the links in the chapter itself, so here you go:  
German version of Baby Shark  
Jaw's Main Theme  
Mack the Knife (German version)  
Superstar by The Carpenters

Erik was seventeen minutes into the third, utterly boring meeting of his work day, when he found himself starting to whisper out the German version of Baby Shark under his breath.

He stopped fiddling with the metal cap of his pen and inconspicuously clamped a hand over his mouth, then looked up to the Stark employee babbling away in front of the presentation slides. Obviously, she hadn’t noticed yet that one of her spectators was being cruelly tormented by his soulmate. Oh, Charles would pay for inconveniencing Erik as soon as he came home in the evening… provided the kids would be going out.

Finally, the song finished, and Erik wanted to heave a relieved sigh only to find that he was now humming the Main Titles to Jaws.

The pen’s metal cap crumbled. He ground his teeth. _What_ could Charles possibly _want_? He had _told_ his husband time and time again to _avoid_ singing aloud when Erik was at work, and no, the melodies helping him grade exam papers didn’t count!

He decided to leave his beloved to stew for a little bit longer and grimly stared at anyone who even so much dared as frown suspiciously at him. Stark himself was now glancing at him, and that damn smirk was sneaking on his face again.

When the movie score faded into Mack the Knife (Erik would forever lament the day he had taught the German version to his husband) and Erik had to press his fingers so hard against his lips that they started to feel numb, he yielded. At last, the whole room had turned to him, all pitying smiles and gleeful smirks, Tony displaying an impressive exemplar of the latter.

Erik raised one hand and signed to his boss for permission to leave the room. He got a gracious nod in response, and before his soulmate could make even more of a fool out of him, he had pushed back his chair, grabbed his suit jacket and phone and was out of the door.

_Und der Haifisch… der hat Zähne... und die trägt er... im Gesicht... _

He decided to retreat to the office toilet. His hip against the row of sinks, he checked his messages, and indeed, there were five texts and three missed calls from _Liebling_. Still belting out the lyrics from The Threepenny Opera, now rolling freely of his tongue, he unlocked his phone.

_Darlingdarlingdarling great news!!! _

_Eriiiiiiiiiiiik _

_You don’t want to hear it????? In a meeting with Tones??? _

_It’s sensational, amazing, brilliant, please answer, pleasepleaseplease!!!!!!! _

_Erik. Jean. Has. Been. Accepted. Into. Harvard. _

If his mouth hadn’t been occupied at that moment (with involuntary singing, of course, get your mind out of the gutter), Erik would have defenestrated all dignity he still had left and whooped. Instead, he opted for a fist pump, then began typing furiously.

_The best news. I will phone her later to congratulate. But please Schatz stop singing. I had to leave a meeting for you. Love you __❤_ _❤_ _❤_

And really, as soon as the two ticks turned blue and a string of hearts and ridiculous stickers popped up in their chat, he found he was no longer compelled to hum along to an outdated musical (or operetta, whatever it was).

So, he put his phone away and almost had a heart attack. Emma fucking Frost was leaning on a cubicle just in front of him, and he had most definitely not heard her come in.

“Sorry, sugar.” She smiled her infamous Cheshire cat smile. “Just wanted to check on you and make sure you weren’t singing your lungs out.”

He growled. “Not anymore. You know, sometimes it sucks to actually have met your soulmate who now knows all your weaknesses.”

Shrugging, she pushed herself of the wood and started towards the door. “Yeah well, _sucks_ for you indeed. Will you be able to join us again?”

“Sure.” He swung his jacket over his shoulder. “And Emma?”

The telepath stopped right under the doorframe. “Don’t. If you treasure your sanity.”

Nevertheless, Erik continued. He was in a teasing mood. “When was the last time you started humming, and I quote, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me” in the middle of a pitch? Or I Kissed A Girl, for that matter? You know, you’re one to talk.”

He could feel her smile in his head, cold, cutting, crystal-clear. “Oh, I know what I’m doing this evening, and it will involve Charles and lots of bribing.”

“Oh please, have mercy,” Erik quipped. But as he walked behind her back to the conference room, he couldn’t help feeling just a sliver of dread curling in his throat.

After all, Charles could make him sing the most embarrassing things.

In the evening, he unlocked the door to their apartment and was nearly run over by Pietro trying to storm out at the exact same moment.

“Oof.” He grabbed the offending teenager – who was humming a song from an album Erik knew had only come out this day around lunchtime – by the shoulders and forced a hug on him, only letting the kid go when his squirming became to intense. “Hey, aren’t you greeting your old man anymore?”

Whining ensued. “Paaaps, I already had to hug Dad and he made me hug Wanda and Lorna, and now I have to hug _you_, too?”

“Don’t make it sound so bad, Sohnemann.” Erik huffed. “Anyway, where’d you get that new album so fast? Intentional spoilers for your soulmate?”

Now, his son was just looking smug. “You know I’ve got my ways, and before you ask, I didn’t steal it, it’s a grey zone, ok? And my soulmate’s always making me sing meme songs, they deserve it.” And without any further word, he pried his father’s hand from around his shoulders and zipped down the corridor, disappearing down the stairs.

With a whoosh, the air rushed back into the vacuum he had left behind, and for a minute, Erik just stood there, unable to get over how much he loved his children. Then, a warm _Hello, love_, nudged his mind, and he went inside to close the door and hang up his coat.

When he came into the living room, he found Charles parked in front of the window, rocking Lorna back and forth on his lap and reading a comic to her. Flames crackled happily away in the fireplace, illuminating the otherwise so grey autumn atmosphere streaming in from outside. From Wanda’s room, glum notes and an even glummer voice spilled. Obviously, she was singing along to The Black Parade for the x-th time that day (no, it was not a phase, as she had once declared in front of their assembled family pack, and that her soulmate had to be a complete a-hole because every time she would imitate Gerard Way, they would follow her up with the hottest charts). Judging from the absence of David’s watch, their younger son was out as well, probably _chillaxing_ in the Mutant & Human Youth Club around the corner.

“Hello, Liebling.” Erik set down his work folder on one of the dinner table chairs, then walked over to give both his husband and his daughter a peck on the nose. Both giggled, and Charles turned his head to give Erik a proper kiss, but then they were quickly reabsorbed in the tale of space adventure and romance laid open on the pages of their graphic novel.

He snorted. Well, if he wasn’t wanted there, he could as well go and cook dinner.

Half an hour later, Lorna had joined him in the kitchen and insisted she could look after the tortilla de patatas while he helped Charles set the table.

“Darling.” This time, Charles grabbed him by his tie – Erik had taken off his jacket and rolled up his dress shirt’s sleeves, but he knew what an effect he had on his husband if he kept on the rest of his work clothes – and pulled him down for a proper kiss, with tongue and all. _How was your day?_

_Embarrassing. Tony probably won’t let me live your escapade down for another ten years. _

His husband released him and chuckled breathily. “Oh, I’m so sorry love, but Jean, our girl… _she’s going to study at one of the best universities_!”

“I’m happy for her, I really am, but Charles-” gently, Erik grabbed the telepath’s hair and shook his head lightly, knowing it would earn him a pretty moan or two- “we talked about this: I can not _not_ punish you for using our soulmate bond to your advantage.”

A deep chuckle. _Oh, I know that. I know that very well_.

Erik leaned down and nibbled at his husband’s earlobe until the blue-eyed beauty was writhing beneath him and gasping, “Lorna’s just around the corner, Erik,” then he let go and went to finish setting the table.

_Minx_. When he turned, Charles was very pointedly staring at his ass.

Softly, Erik started Superstar’s refrain. It was their song. They had been singing it when they had walked into each other on the sidewalk, one hot, sweaty summer day. Erik could still feel the sting of the ice cream Charles had spilled on his crotch, his being in a wheelchair not providing a better aim.

_Don’t you remember you told me you loved me baby? _

Charles’ lips twitched as he sang, just a bit out of tune (he had a nice velvety voice, but Erik knew he himself was the better singer).

_You said you’d be coming back this way again baby. _

Lorna called from the kitchen. Charles wheeling ahead, Erik went to distribute the food on the plates.

_Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh, baby. _

And when he put the plates down, and Charles seated Lorna at her place, they locked eyes.

_I love you_. Erik smiled. _I really do_. And Charles smiled back. 

Love each other they truly did. 


	19. Day 19: That One Time Professor X Successfully Bamboozled Magneto Into Babysitting

Magneto grinned as the X-Mansion came into sight on the horizon. Below him, on the ground, he felt Toad and Sabretooth move towards their target. Finally, he had worked out a fool-proof plan even those two dumbasses wouldn’t manage to ruin, and soon, he would hold Charles Xavier – headmaster of his own Mutant School, his oldest friend and fiercest enemy – captive. Nothing better than to have the leader of Earth’s most well-known mutant team as leverage (he graciously pushed aside the certainty that he would keep the man in his bed, naked, for as long as it took for the X-Men to surrender to his terms, and that he would have to soothe the man’s complaints about how his children had to be looked after and how T_his is getting old, Erik_, with kisses, about a hundred cups of tea and a shelf full of good books).

When he landed on the gravel path at the back of the mansion, Toad and Sabretooth broke away from the trees at the edge of the estate and joined him. Not a soul was in sight, all movement Magneto could track with his metal sense was restricted to the school building. Obviously, it was just another normal day at Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters.

He let his powers fan out wide, wider, until he could feel the Professor’s wheelchair in what had to be the headmaster’s office, parked in front of a desk with no one else in sight. A pen’s head was scratching restlessly over paper.

Magneto nodded to his mutant subordinates, then took into the air once again and levitated around the mansion, homing in on the room’s window and his target.

Suddenly, a phone receiver was picked up and held at what had to be the Professor’s ear. And only a few heartbeats later, the wheelchair’s metal skeleton began to move out from behind the desk.

Cursing, Magneto accelerated. Had his arch-nemesis suddenly caught scent of his impeding doom? Had someone alerted him? And why was he fleeing? Even if he knew of the Brotherhood’s leader’s plans, he rarely compromised them by showing any more resistance than occasionally bullying Magneto about his supposedly horrendous taste in villain-attire colors (what was so bad about magenta, anyway?) when he was carried away bridal-style.

He arrived in front of the room’s window just as Professor X was opening the door to wheel out into the hallway. Latching onto the sill and frame, Magneto pushed open the panes and started to roar, “Professor, your doom has-!”

“Oh, Magneto!” The spoken-to turned, smiled, eyes sparkling with relief. “How fortunate of you to drop by just now! We’ve got an emergency, the X-Men have just rooted out a scientist base which has been conducting experiments on mutants and I am to be sent to the location of the fight to appease the local politics and media.” He gripped the metalbender’s hands tightly – Magneto had been quite thrown off and so chosen to at least get in grabbing-range of his target, which now proved to be just a bit fatal.

“Err,” was all he could stutter out, then, “And to what extent does that involve _me_?”

“I should be supervising the toddlers this afternoon, but now this mess has happened, and I should really be on my way now.” The Prof leaned up to pull his best enemy into a quick kiss, then went to straighten his tie. “Will you look after the children for me, love?”

Erik could only nod, then Charles was wheeling down the corridor already, tires screeching on the hardwood floor where it wasn’t carpeted, and all he threw to Magneto was a last “Goodbye, darling, thank you so much for your help!”

And that’s how Magneto, the mighty Master of Magnetism, and two rather confuddled members of the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants came to babysit the youngest pupils of Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters.

Luckily for them, the kids were all no older than seven and had an accordingly simple grasp of the world’s workings still. And luckily for Magneto, his two subordinates were easily coerced into swearing to shut their mouth about everything that happened this afternoon.

“You’re the big bad Magneto?” a small girl covered in pointy scales had asked him while he had been reciting the Kniereitvers to her and making her hop up or fall down from his lap in accordance with the lyrics.

“I am,” he had answered after simulating her tumble to the floor, smiling at her excited screeching and giggling. Then, he had proceeded to let himself be tickled by the whole horde, occasionally trapping one or two of them with his cape and pretending to abduct them.

In the meantime, Toad and Sabretooth had overcome their inhibition in baby steps, and half an hour later, when Magneto had looked up from where he was showing the children how to draw with wax crayons, he had seen that both his team members were just as absorbed in playing with the adorable little brats. Apparently, Toad’s tongue was both the ickiest and funniest mutation the kids had ever seen, and Sabretooth letting them ride on his shoulders and crawl all over him made them squeal in delight.

Maybe, Erik mused to himself, he should bring some of his other subordinates along to their next attempt at abducting the professor. After all, it seemed to be quite a therapeutic affair.

In the evening, when Professor X had come back from wrapping up one of his X-Men’s ordeals once again, Magneto was waiting for him in his office. His capes had a few tears, and his helmet may or may not have been decorated with some really snazzy children’s drawings, but the exhaustion had certainly been worth it.

When he told his arch-enemy this, the bald man only chuckled and reached to take one of the metallokinetic’s hands to press a kiss on every knuckle. “I’m really sorry for inconveniencing you, my darling, but I promise I’ll make it up to you next time. Now, a new mutant-run restaurant has just recently opened in town, and I haven’t tried it out yet.” His blue eyes sparkled with joy as he looked up at Erik. _How does a nice incognito dinner sound to you?_

“Like the best ending touch to this day, Schatz,” Magneto answered and pulled of his helmet. “Let’s go, shall we?”

And when, that night, he sent back his underlings to stay until the sun was coming up the next day… well, let’s say, neither of the men involved did mind. Not at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a link to a website about the Kniereitervers, if you're interested/confused/bored ;) : https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=392


	20. Day 20: Cooking (For a Horde of Mutant School Kids)

Just as the sun was sending its last rays over the jagged horizon, Erik returned to their bunkhouse after another absolutely nerve-wracking day with a hundred mutant kids in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

He sighed. The students were already toeing off their hiking boots, shouting excitedly at the prospect of going up to their dormitories and doing whatever mutants their age (ranging from Barely A Teenager to Very Nearly Adults) did when they finally had their free time.

He sighed again. Just like the Gifted Youngsters of Xavier’s School, he would have liked to go up to his room, change into some loose sweatpants and patch up the blisters on his feet (he would forever curse the day Logan on which had suggested an autumn camp in one of Canada’s most savage parts, with loads of clambering up mountains, slipping into freezing creeks and sitting around campfires which’s smoke made your eyes water).

But no. Instead, Erik had to cook dinner for a hungry horde of pubescent mutant student monsters. And all just because his beloved husband – headmaster of the school and thus obliged to tag along to the school camp, even though he had to stay in most of the day because being in a wheelchair didn’t make hiking an easy affair – could not _not _burn any meal he even so much as pocked with his pinkie.

_I heard that_, came the answer in Erik’s head, and he was so startled he nearly fell over while pulling off his shoes. _But be assured that I am not useless in _all_ aspects of camp live: I am perfectly apt to getting the kids to do their chores, patching up their bloody knees, telling them bedtime stories and just overall organising this whole debacle of a school camp. Oh, and then I’m decidedly excellent at being ravished by my beautiful husband as soon as all the children are snoring innocently in their beds._

Throwing his backpack and shoes into a corner, Erik made his way to the group house’s kitchen and joined Alex and Darwin at the sink to wash his hands. _Schatz, I really don’t know if I won’t be too tired for that last thing you said. _

Behind him, he felt the metal skeleton of a wheelchair roll into existence through the kitchen door, and soon, two arms looped tightly around his waist. “Oh, are you sure about that?” came a deep purr from velvety lips.

“Very.” Erik dried his hands with a kitchen wipe, then turned and bent to give Charles Xavier a kiss on just these red, red lips. “Hello, Liebling. How are you? Already got sunburn from sitting around in the sun all day?”

Charles chuckled and handed Erik a cup of lukewarm apple juice that he took gratefully. Usually, it wasn’t his first choice of drink, but you could only so long traipse around outside in the sun before you started to feel dehydrated, despite drinking a whole bottle of water.

“You know I’m not just relaxing all day,” Charles started, “There’s papers to be graded, and preparing the evening activities and such is giving me a headache. I wished I could go on a hike or two with you and my children…” He trailed off. That wasn’t a topic they talked about much, even though it had an impact on nearly every part of their daily lives.

“I’m sorry,” Erik whispered, glancing at the two other teachers already beginning to set out the ingredients for dinner on the kitchen counter. “Really, I am. One day, we’ll go on a hike, just you and me, I can guarantee we’ll figure something out. I can levitate you around or something.”

His husband was kneading his hands in his lap, fiddling with the blanket keeping his lower body warm. “That’s very nice of you, Erik. But we’ve got more important things to do right now.” He followed Erik’s gaze. “And you’re sure I can’t help with anything? Cutting vegetables, or…?”

Erik didn’t want to tell him the harsh truth: that this kitchen hadn’t exactly been built with wheelchair users in mind. So, he opted for an alternate one. “Mäuschen, I wouldn’t even trust you with boiling water for those shitty instant noodles in a cardboard cup.”

“Now _that_’s what I call a compliment!” But Charles was smiling, blue eyes framed by laughter lines. “I’ll leave you to it then, I’ll get the children to set the tables instead.”

“Sure, good idea.” Erik’s mind was already on the amounts of rice and tomato sauce they needed for today’s red risotto. Still, he bent down to place a light kiss on his husband’s lips once again. “Logan said he’ll join us with the students on cooking duty, so we’ll handle it. See you at dinner.”

Charles manoeuvred his wheelchair around and towards the door. _See you, darling. I love you_.

_I love you, too_. Then, Erik turned and went to join Darwin and Alex already boiling water in five enormous steel pots. _This _was going to be a tedious affair.

Indeed, it was. With the freezing mountain night soon turning the windows into ominously reflecting surfaces and the glaring overhead lights stinging in Erik’s eyes, the kitchen wasn’t the cosiest room in their rented accommodation. Steam rose from the pots, and more than once, Erik had to keep Sean from pouring sugar instead of salt into the brew (he would have liked to kick the mutant out but alas he had offered his help and such extraordinary behaviour shouldn’t be discouraged upon first try).

Finally, they could call the students seated in the dining hall to draw their rations, and not long afterwards, chattering and the clatter of forks on plates filled the room. His and Charles’ meals in hands, Erik walked up to the teacher’s table and sat at his husband’s side.

“Thank you so much for cooking, love,” Charles perked up with a smile, then leaned over to place a peck on Erik’s cheek.

Sean on the other side of the round table whooped. “Hey, Prof, I helped with cooking! Do I get a kiss, too?” He was promptly elbowed in the side by Alex, but judging from his pained sniggering, he thought it was worth it. Raven just snorted, Armando was grinning silently, and Hank was probably furiously blushing under his fur. Well, Erik couldn’t care less.

He was starving.

The food was wolfed down in record time and everybody went off on their duties, be it in the kitchen washing up, in the dining hall cleaning the table or setting up the evening entertainment. This time, Charles proved to be very helpful by drying off the plates, and Erik told him so repeatedly until his husband hit him with a towel and mock-snarled at him to shut up, much to the amusement of the students around them.

They left the evening program – board games, including monopoly and ludo, which would probably lead to some bashed-in heads and broken friendships – to Raven, showered, got ready for bed and finally, finally retreated to their room.

Erik rested his head on Charles’ chest while his husband read him some of the most remarkable essays he’d come across in his work that day. It was soothing. Erik liked Charles’ voice, very much so.

When suddenly the telepath stirred and Erik, startled from a cosy semi-consciousness, sat up so fast he nearly broke Charles’ nose, they both concurred that now was probably the best time to go to sleep. Other _activities_ had to stand back for that, as Charles told Erik with regret in his voice, but it was easy to assure him they would have time enough when the week was over and they had safely returned to the mansion.

But only seconds after Erik had switched off the lights and pulled their covers around them, Charles’ voice filtered through to him. “So, you really think I can’t cook, not for the life of me?”

Brutal honesty would probably work best. “No, Schatz. No, _absolutely_ not.”

“Oh.” A breathy giggle, then Charles’ hand finding his. “But you think that one day, I’ll be able to go on a hike with you?”

Erik squeezed the hand. “Of course. You can do anything.” A surprised poke at his mind. “Except cooking, of course.”

A pause. Then, “Erik Lehnsherr.” In the dim moonlight sneaking through the curtains, Erik could see his husband studying him with glinting eyes. “I love you. I really, really love you, and I want to thank you for believing in me no matter what.”

Erik didn’t smile often. Only this wasn’t true when he was around Charles. “I love you back just as much. You’re an amazing man, Charles. Now sleep?”

“Sleep,” his telepath agreed.

And so, they did, slept and dreamt of marvellous things. And never, not for a blink of an eye, did their hands leave each other.

Life was good. Even if Erik had to cook all the time because Charles really, _really_ couldn’t be trusted with it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are all lovely people <3 I hope you had a great day!


	21. Day 21: Dancing (Just to Get Straight… to Number One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the link to the sexy Rumba piece, darlings (really nice to dance to) : Straight... to Number One - Touch and Go   
And here's the one to The Hippy Hippy Shake, too, just in case (I'm not even sure if it's not a Rock'n'Roll rhythm, but you can certainly dance Jive to it): The Hippy Hippy Shake - The Swining Blue Jeans   
Enjoy!

“Charles, you’re leading again, verdammt.”

The spoken-to just snorted and continued his steps around Erik to complete the Lady In Shadow Position they were trying to learn. They hadn’t managed yet. It seemed both of them had two left feet or something, and Erik’s leg muscles were beginning to hurt. He groaned in frustration, then found he didn’t have the breath to do so and wheezed instead. _Yes_, Jive might have been a _lively_, _energetic_ dance that looked _groovy_ if you did it right. Their only problem: They didn’t do it _fucking right_.

“Erik, for fu- for something’s sake, stop moaning! I can hear you from two feet away!” Charles panted, then promptly stumbled out of a two-step and over his feet. Erik just so caught him by his watch and hooked his fingers in his telepath’s belt loops.

Raven, trying the same figure on the other side of the Mansion’s kitchen with Hank – and as opposed to Charles and Erik passing with flying colors – turned her head and shouted over, “Losers! And Erik, I thought better of you, I can’t believe you won’t bring my brother dear to follow! Just show him who’s the master!”

It didn’t occur to her in which way her advice could be interpreted if you had a mind like Charles Xavier, who had seen into the deepest, dirties fantasies of countless men and women since he had been a child. “Oh well then,” he breathed and pressed up against a mildly flustered Erik, looped his arms around his metallokinetic’s neck and ground his hips very _very conspicuously_. “Show me who’s in charge, Erik, love, will you?”

Suddenly, Erik felt like it was very hot in the room. Someone must have turned up the heating before they had decided to hold a spontaneous dancing lesson (they had chosen the kitchen because their socks would slide so well on the enamelled slabs and they needed just that to twist and twirl freely).

“Eww, yuck!” Raven emphasised her statement with barfing sounds. “Hank, let’s bail! The two old men are going to shag on the kitchen counter!” With finality, she pulled a deeply flushed mutant boy out of the room, and before Charles could even so much think of shouting “Young lady, language!” after her, the door fell closed with a bang.

“Well.” Slightly consternated, Charles looked up at Erik, his nose just inches from his lover’s. In the vast expanse of walls lined with polished chrome cupboards and counters, The Hippy Hippy Shake (the cover version by The Blue Jeans, mind you) kept playing innocently on a battered phonograph. “Now that we’ve got the spoil-sports out, we might just as well get to the fun part of the evening, don’t you think?”

Hands still on his telepath’s hips, Erik shrugged. “Fine by me. Foxtrott?”

Charles scrunched up his nose in an unfairly adorable way. “Viennese Waltz.”

“Viennese Waltz it is.” Erik untangled himself from his beloved’s embrace and went to shuffle through the LPs.

Five minutes later, Erik was gasping once again, and the room was most definitely spinning when the music finally faded out and Charles brought them to a gentle halt.

“Erik, darling, is everything alright?” But Charles didn’t look worried at all. Smug was more like it.

“You-” Erik leaned back heavily onto a counter. “You did that on purpose. You knew we didn’t know any turns in that Waltz yet and-” He had to pause for another wheeze- “and that I couldn’t bring the argument that you’re smaller than me and could never ever lift your arm high enough for me to pass underneath. You little minx.”

Charles shrugged and went to change the vinyl disc. “All’s fair in love and war, sweetheart. And really, I lead far better than you, my poor feet are testimony to that.”

Erik let one of the metallic cupboards slide open and levitated a metal cup over to himself, filling it with tap water on the way. “I think my brain’s upside down now.”

“Oh, I’ll be able to set it straight alright, I think…” With two strides, Charles had Erik crowded against the shiny chrome, leaned up on his tiptoes and started nibbling at the German’s ear lobe. “Rumba?” And before Erik could grab him by his behind and reverse their positions, he was off again, back in the empty space where the kitchen table had stood before they had moved it to the far wall.

“Rumba,” Erik agreed just as the very first notes of their song started playing. Charles was already swaying his lips in slow, undulating movements when he joined him and very determinedly grabbed his partner’s right hand.

Charles’ contempt picked at his mind.

“Charles.” Erik laid his right hand on the smaller man’s back, just beneath his shoulder blade. “We already know the basic twist in this one, and the thingy where I lead you around myself. There’s no way _you_’re tall enough to do the same with _me_.”

Grumbling, Charles laid his right arm atop Erik’s. “Good, fine, lead the way.”

And Erik did. At least until the singer’s velvety voice cut through the thick air between them.

_Ten… Kiss me on the lips _

Charles stopped in midstep and brought their lips together, his hand slithering up to bury itself in Erik’s hair. Oh. _That _song hadn’t been a coincidence either, as it appeared.

Erik readily kissed back, grabbed Charles around his hips in a caveman move and pulled them flush up against each other, moaning into the kiss.

_Nine… Run your fingers through my hair _

Charles’ grip tightened as he walked them backwards.

_Eight… Touch me _

Erik just so kept his hips from bruising on the edge of the kitchen counter as he was hauled up and onto it.

_Slowly _

His legs tightened around Charles’ torso, his back was bent at a more than awkward angle, but he couldn’t care less. Their movements were fast, frantic.

_Slowly _

Just to be sure, he fused the kitchen door’s lock to a mess, then concentrated on Charles’ hands burning on his bare skin as they slipped under his turtleneck and grabbed its hem, then pulled up. Up. Up.

_Seven… _

He was once again amazed at the fast work Charles did of his black pullover, then his wife beater. Verdammt, the man was _good_ (all practice probably).

_Hold it! _

And _that_ look on Charles' face as he knelt down onto the floor did mean nothing good. Erik had learned as much.

_Let’s go straight… to number one _

No. It meant something better.

Genosha’s Midsummer Night feast was in full swing when two old mutants retired to their humble abode on the outskirts of town. Partying until the sun came just wasn’t possible anymore at their age.

Instead, they lay in bed, side by side, and watched the colourful display of mutant powers – energy, sparkling bright, dancing almost – thrown into the air, a stark contrast against the deep black night sky. They agreed that it was a very beautiful sight indeed.

Then – the clock was just nearing one in the morning –, Erik decided that maybe they should give it a go anyway. Getting up, he pulled over a crate with dusty LPs as well as their new shiny gramophone in its metal casing.

“Mrrm,” Charles very eloquently observed. “Eriiik, what’s that going to be? Let an old man get some sleep!”

“You’re the one that never lets me sleep.” Erik puttered about with the old-fashioned device, set the needle onto the subtly furrowed surface of the vinyl disc. “With your hang to imitating a rabbit’s sex drive…”

Charles choose not to answer that ridiculous accusation and instead buried his head under the pillow. Really. He was tired. And his shoulders hurt.

The very familiar melody sounding softly from the record player did somehow animate his spirits, though.

“Is that…?”

“Straight… to Number One.” Erik, with his hair streaked grey and lines deep like valleys in his face, came back to straddle his telepath’s hips. “Mind if I dance along?”

Charles was tired. Charles didn’t care, but smiled softly instead. “Of course not, sweetheart.”

And as the music swelled and inundated the room with its richness, and as Erik’s lips travelled down from Charles’ neck over his clavicles and across his chest to soon disappear under the fringe of the blanket, Charles knew: The best was yet to come.


	22. Day 22: Under the Pear Tree (A New Tradition)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda going nowhere with this, but at least it's a fluffy nowhere. Hope you are well!

It wasn’t until two years after Edie Lehnsherr’s funeral that the Xavier-Lehnsherrs visited her and her husband’s grave again.

The early spring sun was painting tiger stripes on the lawn beneath the swaying tree branches as their car pulled into a marked spot opposite the entrance to the relatively new Wald-Friedhof just outside Düsseldorf. All ten of them had piled into the rented minivan, so it was quite understandable that as soon as the vehicle’s engine has spluttered out, the children threw open its doors and began a wild chase around the parking area while Charles transferred himself to his wheelchair and Ruth assisted Erik in unloading their well-stocked picnic baskets.

“And you’re sure it’s not going to be seen as disrespectful that we’re having lunch in the middle of the graveyard?” Charles mumbled to his husband as this one placed a large blanket on his lap. By the wrought iron gate separating the final resting places from the gravelled lane leading to it, Erik’s sister was about to assemble their kids, handing out picnic hampers and flasks to carry.

Erik smiled, adjusting the scarf against the cool spring air around Charles’ neck. “Don’t worry, the gardener and the porter won’t mind. It’s not like there are any religious laws that could be broken, it’s not a religious-specific place. And you know our time here is limited, we might as well combine our family picnic with visiting my parents.”

Hesitantly, Charles nodded. Still, he knew all too well how strict some cemeteries were. Sometimes he asked himself if his mother had chosen the one where she and his father lay just to inconvenience him and Erik. There were just so many stairs, and the workers keeping the graves presentable were seemingly fanatic Christians, or so their thoughts aimed at the same-gender couple with five loud kids suggested. Also, he had done his research and knew just how strict Jewish religion could be regarding their graveyard’s rules.

He sighed. “Alright. Let’s go then.” And that said, he gripped his wheels and started towards the others.

Behind him, he could hear Erik’s steps on the pebbles as he followed, and his serene mindscape taking in the blue sky and green trees like he seldomly did, not even when they went hiking.

Charles felt it, too. The vast expanse of greenery should have been eerily quiet. Instead, there were hundreds of echoes, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he was steering towards a crowd of people. A crowd happily chattering away. A crowd long gone in the stream of time.

Their little procession on the stone-paved path leading through the young grave birches, beeches and oaks towards Edie and Jakob Lehnsherr’s must have looked slightly strange, almost pagan to other visitors, but they couldn’t care less. Klara and Jona, Ruth’s twins (yes, the Lehnsherrs seemed prone to having twins), ran ahead, their thoughts overturning with excitement. Close behind them, Ruth Lehnsherr herself strolled and made polite conversation with little David, while Pietro had chosen to seek shelter on his Dad’s lap. Meanwhile, Erik had his two daughters around his neck, in Lorna’s case quite literally so. Wanda just laughed at her Papa’s attempts at trying not to get choked to death.

Charles smiled and ran his hands through his oldest son’s silver hair, then he craned his head to look behind.

In the sparse sun rays, Anya, their eldest, trotted along. She always seemed to be the most comfortable if she was out of hearing distance, and as he saw birds and insects swoop down towards her, he understood why. Sometimes, he, too, felt like most animals’ company was indeed preferable to that of humans.

Finally, their noisy expedition arrived at its destination: A pear tree standing near a cluster of junipers, with an intricately engraved iron plaque dangling from a delicate chain wound around one of the thicker branches, courtesy of Erik of course.

_Jakob Lehnsherr _

_Edie Lehnsherr _

_Safe In Eternity’s Embrace _

Quickly, they set about preparing for lunch. The blanket was thrown out onto the long grass, the food unpacked, the fidgety but hungry children coerced into sitting down by means of firm words.

Then, the feasting began. Charles, leaning into Erik’s side, who in turn was leaning against the grave tree’s trunk (which still made Charles anxious about a feral gardener jumping out at them any moment now), left the (in his opinion gross) canned sausages they had picked up in a typical German supermarket to the children and instead chose to indulge in his husband’s superb bread sticks with cucumber pickles and hummus.

Even the weather was great. The sun was shining, occasionally eclipsed by cute cotton-wool clouds, and the wind wasn’t as biting as it had been the previous days, almost as though it wanted to rival Erik’s culinary skills. Well, hard luck for nature, nothing would ever come close to the amazing being Charles’ lovely husband was.

He promptly leaned over and confided his thoughts in his metalbender, who chuckled and gave him a peck on the forehead, then on the lips. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Why, thank you, love. Now, dessert?”

“Dessert!” David perked up, even setting aside his beloved battered copy of Stormchaser, a novel he’d seemingly chosen at random as his favourite book from The Edge Chronicles (and his special kind of cuddly toy).

“Eh eh,” Ruth chided and batted Klara’s hand away from the Techina biscuits. “_First_ you finish your bean salad, young lady, and the same goes for you, Jona.” The brunette, just as tall as Erik (maybe even a bit taller) and just as shark-grinned, got unimpressed stares from her two girls, but they complied. Charles frowned. Sometimes he wished his kids were as well-educated as her twins. Alas, only (“only”) two fathers supervising five whirlwinds meant that they couldn’t go after every little misbehaviour.

And now that he thought about it, he wouldn’t want it any other way. Erik and him, they were doing well.

After dessert came games. Uno, ludo, snakes and ladders, they had everything packed to entertain the children. And entertained the kids were (even though Anya, feeling like she was too old and too much of a moody teenager to participate in such childish activities, sneaked off after some minutes to make contact with the local squirrels).

Charles was glad their kids got along so well with Erik’s sister’s twins, and he worried they would have to force them apart at the airport. Wanda and Pietro in particular had taken to the two small brunettes, probably finding common ground in their sisterly respectively sisterly-brotherly constellation.

He and Erik soon left Ruth and the kids to their own devices and laid back on the edge of the blanket, Erik’s head heavy on Charles’ chest. Wrapped in their winter coats, the cold ground didn’t bother them in the least, and if he closed his eyes, Charles could feel shadows moving between the trees, shadows of past lives.

It was unlike any cemetery he’d ever been to before. It was alive.

“You know,” Erik murmured suddenly and stirred Charles from a comfortable semi-consciousness, “we should do that every time we come to Germany. Have a picnic under their pear tree, with as many people as possible. Mama and Papa are _loving_ it.”

Charles inhaled softly, taking in the scent of the slightly damp grass, the seldomly used blanket, his husband’s shampoo. “You mean a tradition? Like David dragging his Stormchaser book on every holiday we take because he wants it to see as much of the world as it possibly can?”

“Yes, a tradition. A _new_ tradition.” His husband hauled himself up on his elbow, leaned over so he could place a gentle kiss on his telepath’s unruly hair, then brush away a stray strand. “You know, they have those traditions of eating on their ancestors’ graves in South America, and in Asia, too. Like the Día de Muertos. Mum and Paps wouldn’t care if it’s against Jewish rules, they always were quite liberal after all.”

_I love you_, Charles thought, and out loud he said, “Alright, a _new tradition_ it is,” and nodded.

His husband smiled, and it made his heart soar with the knowledge that he was the luckiest man in the _world_. He didn’t get to think more after that, because Erik leaned down and kissed him breathless, and all he remembered were the warmth of their lips moving against each other- and Anya’s embarrassed squeals as she suddenly appeared behind them with a young fox in tow.

In the end, the sun began to crawl back behind the horizon. So, they ambled back to their minivan, the children with healthily rosy cheeks, the adults happily tired and with their phone’s galleries full of adorable snapshots. They gave Ruth with Klara and Jona a lift to their apartment, returned their vehicle to the hirer, then stumbled back to their hotel rooms and directly into bed (well, after the kids had brushed their teeth, and Erik and Charles as well because they had to be _good role models_).

The lights had been out for a few minutes already until Charles decided to speak up. “You know what?” he whispered into Erik’s ear.

“Hrrmwhat?” The spoken-to tightened his arms around his husband.

“I love you… and I really can’t wait for our next Cemetery Picnic Day.”

All the response he got was a faint, approving moan and his husband burying his head under his chin. But to him, it was enough of an answer.

That night, he dreamt of shapes moving in the vast expanse of time, of trees growing out of nowhere. And of Erik’s parents, smiling and waving goodbye, even though their arms were laden with pears. 


	23. Day 23: Stargazing Aboard the Stargazer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another space AU! Enjoy!

The chosen X-People quivered in anticipation. Charles could taste the adrenaline on their thoughts as he swept their minds, making sure none of them felt sick. Everyone had fastened the seat belt and were now more or less patiently waiting.

Then, the military commander bellowed the signal for take-off through the _Stargazer_’s bridge. Charles relied it telepathically to the rest of the crew, children and allies of him, deep in the ships’ bowels. The engines whirred to live. Strapped in beside Charles, Erik reached for his husband’s hand and squeezed it gently.

Charles squeezed back.

There was a smooth, almost imperceptible surge forward, and off they were into the unknown.

Well, it wasn’t so much the unknown as the so far untraversed. Earth’s authorities planned for them to make it at least as far as Mars where they had already deposited crates of building material and provisions by teleoperated rockets, so they could build a colony and then travel on further, beyond even what had so far been charted by the astronomers.

It was a huge project, an attempt at solving the planet’s issue of overpopulation, and an invaluable opportunity for the X-Men to step up beside Earth’s more worldly heroes.

As Charles glid by one of the large glass panels giving free view of space’s blackness, only interrupted by the unwavering pinpricks that were the stars, Carol Danvers waved to him, idly following along at the ship’s side. He waved back. The woman would accompany them only as far as the red planet, then she would return to Earth, not willing to leave behind her wife and daughter. Charles thought it was a shame really. Captain Marvel was nice to everyone, her maintenance work at the ship’s hull would have to be replaced by tedious space walks, and her light glow filtering through their cabins’ portholes every now and then let the crew sleep easier.

It was just so soothing to know someone else was out there. Someone who could and _would_ protect them at all costs.

Around him, the _Stargazer_ creaked and moaned lightly, and had he not known it was constructed to be flexible, even a bit elastic, he probably would have been _slightly_ disturbed. But they had, well, _lent_ Kurt to the human government to work on the construction site, bamfing building components over from space shuttles to the enormous cradle orbiting Earth. They had had two very attentive golden eyes on the building process and could be sure it was a safe means of transport.

He had just twisted around another corner, carefully monitoring where his numb legs should or shouldn’t bump on, when Kitty phased through the floor in front of him. Blueprints in her hands, clad in the black space wear designed to keep body heat and humidity in and stray cosmic radiation out, the nineteen-year-old woman looked as though she’d never lived or worked anywhere else.

“Oh, hey Professor!” She grabbed onto the railing that led around every corridor of the ship so she didn’t drift off. “How’s it going?”

“Very well. I’m on my way to meet with the _Stargazer_’s psychologist, Ms Cooper, just to establish regular check-ups.” He smiled, pointed to the documents. “Erik requested those?”

An eyeroll. “Yes. He just wants to scan the whole thing and match it with the blueprints, _again_, just to be sure, he says. It’s not as though the ship hasn’t been on the go for three days already.”

“Oh, but I’m sure he just wants to do regular check-ups, too.” Erik was that kind of man, Charles knew all too well. He shrugged half-heartedly. “And you know how it is: He’s a big child when it comes to his metal toys. Always worried, always eager to try them out again and again.”

“Hmph. Anyway, after that it’s my free time.” A smile tiptoed onto her face. “And then he’s going to indulge in his duty as the ship’s cook. I can’t wait for dinner.”

“Oh, me neither.” Charles’ smile morphed into a grin. “Alright then, I should be off. I’ll see you in the mess.”

“Uh, if you mean the galley by that, yes sure.” Her hand turned see-through like the fin of an exotic fish, the rest of her body following suit, and just before her head disappeared in the ceiling, she threw him a last, “See you, Prof!” And then she was gone, her consciousness ascending through the vessel’s labyrinth above him.

He shook his head. She had been so happy when her mutation had classified as adequate, even _sorely needed_ to provide sufficient variation in the _Stargazer_’s crew’s skillset. Just like Jean, like Kurt and Darwin and Lorna, she had immediately agreed to go on the space expedition, even though the adventure came with the cost of not setting foot on Earth for at least a decade. The same issue had made Raven and Logan decline (both of them had passed a week aboard the X Space Station and concluded that it was an awful way to live), while Scott, not really a practical asset, had practically begged to tag along, for Jean’s sake.

Of course, they couldn’t say no to a lover’s request, and now they had a competent shapeshifter and a five-foot-three-inches bulk of gruffness instead of a boy scout shooting laser beams out of his eyes guarding the Xavier Institute back down on the solid ground.

Charles still felt excitement and a nagging sorrow bubble up at the thought that it had become reality: They wouldn’t see blue skies and green meadows and huge crowds in many years. Their life now was steel, stale air and zero gravity until Hank could install their rotation technology which had already proved successful for the XSS.

He floated on. No, he definitely didn’t miss his wheelchair, and secretly, guiltily, he hoped Hank would take his time.

Seven days later, Mars faded into their range of vision. And on the same day, Charles and Erik were obliged to have their first space walk tethered to the _Stargazer_.

Luckily, they knew the routine from the XSS, unlike some of the human crew who had never even been in the upper stratospheres of Earth before this journey. But as they stepped out of the air lock, one after the other, they didn’t quite feel as in their element as they had around their own space module.

Something was different. Maybe it was the absence of Earth, usually a steady presence at every move they made. Maybe it was the huge vessel which’s expanse they only really could take in when they floated in front of its hull, two tiny specks of dust against the enormity of gleaming steel, ceramics and glass.

Or maybe it was the knowledge that they were oh-so far away from the place where they had been born. Millions of miles away. If they went missing here, there was no way anyone would ever find them, even if the searchers scoured the whole expanse of space with minute accuracy.

Casting these humbling thoughts aside, Charles drew in a breath and listened as the intercom crackled to life.

“Schatz?” came Erik’s voice over his earpieces. “Carol’s already in position. The defective solar panel is just straight ahead in the direction of the canteen’s window front.”

“You’ve got the tool box secured?” An affirmative hand gesture. “Alright, you go ahead, I follow,” Charles conceded, pulling himself hand over hand towards where his husband clutched at the vessel’s outer husk.

In the end, it was a matter of minutes. Carol, herself having received a speed-course in mechanics before embarking with them, had had to admit defeat at one of the circuits seemingly burning through at a rather inaccessible place under the energy-producing devices, but with Erik doing the fine work and Charles assisting gladly, they could troubleshoot the issue after some tweaks and twists.

The mutants left the superhuman to reattaching the panel and climbed back towards their hatchway at a snail’s pace.

They didn’t go back in immediately. Erik was going stir-crazy in the maze of the _Stargazer_, anyway, even though he was in his element with all the metal surrounding him and Charles snuggling up to him every night in their shared cabin’s cot. Charles himself never felt far from a migraine as well, with everyone’s thoughts crowded closely together and no escape in sight.

So, instead of letting the passageway creak open soundlessly in the vacuum of outer space, they lingered, idly holding hands and letting themselves float about, tethered to the slowly moving ship by their security rope.

When Charles looked over to Erik, he could see the metalbender’s face illuminated harshly by the far sun’s uninhibited rays. Through their intercom, they only shared the faint noise of their breaths. In and out. In and out.

Suddenly, Erik untangled his hand from Charles’ and reached up to the astronaut-glove-touch-sensitive panel on his left wrist, disconnecting their mics from the Stargazer’s bridge.

Upon Charles’ questioning gaze, he smiled. “I just wanted to talk. Liebling… Do you think this is a good idea?”

“What, us unnecessarily hanging around in space? Certainly not.” But his chuckle died on his lips as his husband frowned and shook his head.

“No. I was talking about… _this_.” He dispassionately waved towards the _Stargazer_. “Do you really think promoting humanity’s further distribution is what we should aim for? Who knows, maybe we’ll come across… _life_. Out there. And only for us to walk all over it, trample it into the ground.”

Charles thought maybe now was a good time to keep his mouth shut and not point out that it was just as well possible _they_ could be the one walked over and trampled down. Instead, he squeezed Erik’s hand in its bulky gloves, the distance imposed by the space suit suddenly tearing a small gash in his heart. “Darling. That’s why we are here. We’re the advocates of yet unknown species, because we’ve experienced the human’s potential for mindless demolition first-hand.” At Erik’s sceptical pout, he added, “And we have our ways. To reinforce, support our opinion, you know.”

This seemed to reassure his husband. Slowly, the creases around his mouth smoothed over. His mindscape returned to its neatly stacked order, almost like a very serene origami crane, and his gaze travelled back towards where the red planet lay in its nest of stars, waiting for them.

A few minutes of undisturbed silence passed. Then, “You know, I very much enjoy sharing this with you. Actual stargazing in outer space. And with you as my husband, no less.”

Charles chuckled. “Indeed, it seems I’m stuck with you for quite a while still, love. But I must admit I do not feel distressed in the slightest.”

This earned him a hungry glare from Erik. “Let’s go in. I’m suddenly overcome with the very urgent urge to kiss you into oblivion.”

“Oh.” Well, he didn’t need to be told twice. “I am intrigued.”

And so, Charles started towards the airlock, Erik close behind.

They didn’t even make it as far as their cabin after that (Raven, who once again decided to vidphone them at the worst time possible, would hit both of them in their biceps years later, at the exact moment they would step out of quarantine). 


	24. Day 24: Flowers to Remember

The sun had barely crept over the treetops when Charles Xavier, heir of the Westchester estate, rolled out of his bed and into his wheelchair.

Today was a special day. Today was _the_ special day.

Today was the day his best childhood friend would leave for the city.

That was enough of an occasion for Charles – who was usually more of a night owl than an early bird – to get up when the dew was still fresh on the grass and the pigeons had just begun their morning concert. And he really hoped Erik would appreciate it.

Passing by the kitchen, he grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. Breakfast had to wait for now.

It was a mild summer morning insidiously veiling the heat that was to come, and Charles was glad he had opted for a simple floral white dress shirt and khaki trousers even though he was shivering in the fresh air. The gardens flourished around him as he wheeled down the intricate gravel tracks leading to the Lehnsherrs’ cottage, and once again, he couldn’t help admiring the daily work Erik’s parents and their two children put into keeping the greenery alive and healthy. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought they were a family of botanopathic mutants.

Even from afar, he could hear Erik whistling a German folk song, picked up by the breeze and carried over the path’s windings directly to his ears. And suddenly, his heart ached. Yes, he would miss his dear friend very much. His dear friend, who was so much more.

Half of his apple had already disappeared when finally, Charles rounded the last cluster of neatly trimmed box bushes to be faced with the gardener’s pretty little house and his equally pretty son lounging on the wrought-iron bench near the door. On the stone slab veranda, two crammed suitcases stood, their shiny metal handles ready to be picked up by a very excited metallokinetic.

And just this metallokinetic had gotten up and was now sauntering over to Charles, two steaming cups of peppermint tea in his hands. In his eyes sparkled the apprehension, the _thirst _for the unknown, and something else that made Charles’ heart give a little sigh. He couldn’t quite pinpoint if it was a good or a bad one.

“Hallo Liebchen.” In the young sun’s golden glow, Erik’s stubble stood out hard against his bronze skin as he handed Charles one of the cups (in return, he received a warm _Thank you _directly pressed into his mind). “Was verschafft mir die Ehre, Milord?” His smile was wide, vibrant, as it always was when he talked to his parents’ employer’s son.

Quickly, Charles scanned the boy’s surface thoughts for the German phrase’s meaning. _To what do I owe the honour?_ Ah. Erik was in a playful mood.

Hardly surprising if one considered the fact that he would leave the mansion, his family, his old, well-trodden life behind this very day.

Charles shrugged, took a bite of his apple, chewed slowly. Then, “Well, all I want is to say goodbye to my best friend. Is that too much to ask for?”

Erik had sat down on a stone wall bordering a bed of periwinkle and forget-me-nots, his knees just so brushing Charles’. “Of course not. Where’s Raven?”

“Oh.” Charles finished his apple core, flicked its stem into the patch and ignored Erik’s reproachful glare. “Is my mere presence not good enough anymore?” He tried a smile. Failed. As a distraction, he began licking the fruit’s juice from his fingers, digit after digit.

Not deceived in the slightest, Erik leaned forward and patted his numb knees awkwardly. “Hey, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I was just wondering why you’re up so early without her having dragged you out of bed. But it’s a lovely surprise.”

Charles refrained from sucking on his fingers like a baby. “Alright, I just don’t like it. You going away. I know it’s great that you’re able to go to college in NYC, I’m happy for you, I’ll just-” Oh no, he was not going to cry. He took a sip of his scalding tea, then continued. “I’ll miss you. Very much.”

The edge faded from Erik’s smile. He took Charles’ hand. “I’ll miss you, too. Very much, even more.” His lips were soft like petals as he bent down and pressed them to his telepath’s skin. “And it’s only eleven more months until you’re mature, too, and then you can come study with me.”

Finally, smiling wasn’t painful anymore. “I will. And Raven as well, she’s already so excited about Big Apple, and Sharon and Kurt can take their whining and stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

A first stray sun ray underlined Erik’s relieved chuckle. “Charles Xavier, you vulgar snob.”

“Call me all the names you want,” the spoken-to replied in the poshest British accent he could manage, “but I will not be deterred in my ways.”

“Of course not, Schatz.” Leaning backwards, Erik let go of his hand, reached behind the stone wall and re-emerged with a dainty blue blossom. “Look. It’s the same colour as your eyes.” And he slid the flower in place behind Charles’ ear. “Perfection. Brings out your eyes out phenomenally in combination with the white shirt.”

Charles leaned into his chair, put one of his arms up on its backrest and turned his head in this and that direction. “You think I’m handsome?” _Paint me like one of your French girls_, he added in his head and got an amused _You wish_ in response.

“Handsome _and_ beautiful. The prettiest.” Erik nodded. “I’ll come visit you in the middle of fall, when the leaves are golden and we can go for long walks on the grounds. And on Hanukkah, I have to visit my family, and on Christmas and Easter.” _I’ll never be far away_.

_And this is what love must feel like_, Charles thought to himself. He reached up, plucked the blue blossom from his hair and held it up into the sunlight. “I see what you did there.” And down the flower went to meet his lips. Then, he carefully placed it in Erik’s open palm. “Forget-me-not, love.”

“I won’t. It’s just one year, Charles.” Still, a suspicious shine covered Erik’s eyes as he leant forward, bracing himself on the wheelchair’s armrests, and met Charles’ lips with his own.

It was a soft, a tender affair. Many things could happen in a year, and they both knew it. This might not have been their final goodbye, but a goodbye it was nonetheless.

Charles leaned into the kiss. Inconspicuously, his hand wandered up to caress Erik’s hair, his cheeks, his perfect jawline, and he could feel Erik doing the same, tracing the contours of his neck, his shoulders.

And far too fast, it was over.

“Posh little English boy,” Erik whispered in his ear as he drew back. “Always so fancy in your impeccable dress shirts.”

“Oh, you love it, you brute.” Charles smirked.

“I do, Schöner, I do,” Erik murmured, momentarily occupied with checking his watch, but when he looked up again, his eyes were bright and hopeful. “Forty minutes still until Papa drives me to the station. Want to kiss some more before we have to part?”

“Nothing more than that,” and before his boyfriend had a chance to reply, Charles grabbed him by his collar and pulled him close.

Lost in the jumble, the forget-me-not sailed to the floor and stayed there for a long, long time.

One year later, Charles moved into Erik’s tiny apartment in the suburbs of New York City. It was difficult at first, navigating the streets in a wheelchair, but his boyfriend did everything to put him at ease.

Seven years later, Charles popped the question over a dinner with Chinese take-away and the papers he was grading while Erik was shuffling through mountains of ambitious blueprints for even more ambitious helicarriers and airships. Of course, the answer was a very enthusiastic _yes!_, with a great follow-up shag.

And three years after that, they moved into the currently vacant Xavier Mansion to accommodate the growing number of their children and their students. Everybody got on like a house on fire, more and more parents sent them their mutant children to keep them safe, to teach them how to be different in a society that feared the unknown.

But in a drawer of Erik’s desk, in a yellowed envelope padded with paper tissues, lay a dry blue flower with a kiss long faded into its petals. And every now and then, the metalbender would take it out and show it to his husband and say, “See, I did not forget.”

Charles would only chuckle, lean over and give Erik a dainty kiss. And then maybe another one. And another one.

Because oh, _forgetting_ was truly impossible.


	25. Day 25: One Game of Chess (Losing and Winning)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not proof-read because I'm tired and it's four minutes to midnight, but I'll go over it tomorrow! Enjoy <3

The metal detector beeped idly as the security guard moved it over Charles’ form perched on the simple medical cot that had been wheeled in for him. On the other side of the room designated for the last security sweep of visitors, a second man in the high-security prison’s uniform was patting off his wheelchair and a third was sending his chess set through another X-ray apparatus while two others stood guard at the closed door. Both had their hands on their strapped-in guns, ready to act.

If it couldn’t have compromised his visit, Charles would have scoffed dismissively. Humans and their weapons; simply inseparable.

“Alright. No metal except for cufflinks, tie bar and his suit jacket’s buttons. No bioweapons or other weapons either, and his psionic abilities will be levelled by the counterbalance mutation rays inside the cell. You clear with the wheelchair and its bag over there?” After he had received an affirmative nod from both his colleagues, the prison guard finally addressed Charles directly. “You’re all clear to go now, Mr Xavier, if you still wish to visit that… man.” The _abominable_ was left unspoken. Still, Charles heard it as clear as if it had been screamed in his face, and he knew this behaviour for what it wasn’t: unintentional.

He smiled politely. “Thank you. And yes, I still wish to visit Erik Lehnsherr.”

All he got was a dubious look before the guard gestured for the others to wheel his means of transport over. “Will you need help with this?”

“No, thank you.” Charles checked if the chess set was back in its place in the wheelchair’s back rest bag, then transferred himself with ease. “Now, would you be so kind and please show me to his quarters?”

Erik looked up from the book he was reading, splayed out comfortably on his narrow bed in his narrow cell, when the door opened with an almost inaudible hiss and Charles wheeled in.

“Why, good afternoon, old friend,” he purred, set his reading material on the tiny beside table and stretched sluggishly.

Charles gave a courteous nod. “Good afternoon, Erik. I see you are well here in your solitary confinement.” That said, he manoeuvred around the bedpost and up to the fold-away table with one chair placed on the other side, its back to the less than generous window giving a barred view on the prison’s courtyard. He twisted, pulled the foldable chess board with pieces out of his wheelchair’s satchel and began setting up a new game.

“Well, what can I say…” Taking his sweet time, the other man got up, stretched again, straightened his orange overall. Grinned his infamous shark grin, nowadays riddled with sparse folds, a testimony of his forty years of arduous, chequered life. “One’s past as a highly dangerous mutant supervillain surely spices up one’s stay in this facility here.”

“Care for a game?” Charles gestured for the now neatly arranged chessboard, and in response Erik slumped down wordlessly opposite him, eyeing him both appreciatively and apprehensively.

Only after he had made his first move, a simple, almost lax relocating of a pawn, did he voice his thoughts (which Charles couldn’t hear, because it seemed the security guards hadn’t just been boasting when they had talked about the security measures). “Now, _old friend_… how is it going in the outside world? I haven’t exactly been filled in regularly in these past months, you see.”

Charles nodded, smiled politely, made his move. “Well, you could say we have encountered some… difficulties in certain fields. The school is up and running, smoothly even, if I may say so, but something is brewing in the politics concerning my people- which are yours, too, of course. In short, we are trying to get back in touch with earlier _allies_.”

There, his opponent perked up. “Oh? Who did you have in mind?”

Charles tutted, pointed to the chessboard. “Let’s not waste our time with mindless banter. You know my visit is restricted and supervised by the means of this cell’s technology, I would be loath to bore our overhearers with unimportant details.”

Something awakened in Erik’s eyes then. Something dark. Something that hadn’t been there since he had been admitted to this nearly inescapable prison, designed to keep any superhuman in, and that for the whole span of their live.

Charles knew because Beast had managed the impossible and tapped in on the government’s 24/7 surveillance of The Mutant Criminal Magneto’s cell. To outsiders, Erik may have looked fine, even suspiciously cheerful for a man who had been sentenced to life in solitary confinement.

But Charles knew better. He had seen the life force oozing out of his former lover, had seen it decline daily under the never-ending scrutiny of his wardens.

Yes, he may have sat motionless in front of the screens displaying Erik’s routine in prison, for hours at a time even. But what else was he to do? Ignore the things being done to the man he had once loved (still loved)?

Now, though, there was this new glint in Erik’s eyes. And even without his telepathy, Charles knew, deep down, what it was: hope.

The chess board Charles had brought along was an antiquity. Its wood, carved into its shape by the nimble fingers of an artisan, inlaid with mother of pearl, radiated a sense of anciennity, of timeless beauty and elegance. And so did its pieces, the finely sculptured horse heads of mahogany and cedar wood, the almost voluptuous curves of the queens, the serene rigidity of the kings.

Charles was extra careful when he took Erik’s first pawn and set him on the plastic table top.

Erik was losing. That much Charles could tell, and not only from the other man’s lower-than-average strategy or from the position of the chess pieces. No, there was something in the way he was sagging in his tottery foldable chair, in the way he looked up at Charles form under his eyelashes, in the way he would toy absent-mindedly with a loose thread on his prisoner’s attire.

Erik was losing. Because he knew what was coming.

Charles smiled at him, slightly. It was the first sign of friendliness he had displayed since he had entered the feared mutant criminal’s cell.

“The pawns always go first.”

At the very moment the black pawn touched the table top’s surface, a car pulled up to the prison’s gate. Inside sat a man of high military rank, with his chauffeur and two bodyguards in the back.

The soldier on guard duty didn’t exactly understand what kind of high military rank the man occupied, but after some back-and-forth, he pressed a button and let the vehicle with its occupants pass, because high military rank was high military rank. He thought he felt a sting as he reached through his window to hand back all the paperwork, but he brushed it off as one of his body’s multiple quirks.

Good for him, because exactly one minute after the gate had been lowered again and the car had disappeared behind the next one (there were eight checkpoints to pass in total), the man glanced one last time at the control panels before him, then closed his eyes and fell of his seat. After that, all that could be heard in the gatehouse was faint snoring.

Only a few minutes later, Charles slaughtered Erik’s rook.

“And here goes level two,” he murmured, not even once glancing at where he put the rook, eyes instead locked steadily with Erik’s.

The two men remained like that for a long time. Neither moved, and the guards on duty of supervising the visit began to worry, double-checked the anti-mutation rays penetrating the small room, and found nothing.

As it seemed, all was running smoothly. If only they had known that this might have been the case for their opposition, but in no way for themselves.

The rook was set down, and the automatic plexiglass doors to the prison’s bleak entrance hall creaked open. Through them strode four figures, three women, one man, all of them proudly upright, all of them slim and beautiful and trained.

The woman in the uniform with the most decorations stepped forward, towards the reception desk.

The soldier behind it glanced up from her computer screen, did a double take. “Excuse me, do you have an appointment?”

The woman smiled. “No.”

Erik let his knight jump into one of Charles’ traps soon after, and as the telepath reached for it, he leaned forward and took his hand. He didn’t let go again, his thumb instead drawing lazy circles on its back.

Charles just smiled. They continued playing single-handedly then, more focussed on their point of physical contact than on the actual game.

The sergeant checking the security camera installed in a corner of the room scoffed. “Would you look at that! Lehnsherr is not only a mutie but a special snowflake, too.”

The dark knight was cast aside without special care. There was a sudden displacement of air in the room the security checks were held, and the prison wardens didn’t even have the time to scream before they fell to the floor like string puppets.

“Good job, son,” the blue woman told the man with the tail resembling a pike and the odd hands after the purple smoke had dissipated.

At her side, a blonde clad in all white smiled a devious smile. “Don’t I get a thank you as well?”

“Ugh,” the girl in a black-and-yellow spandex suit murmured, “guys, stop bickering, we’re on a mission here.” Coiled around her neck, a greyish dragon the size of a cat purred approvingly.

“Erik!” Charles chuckled, rubbed one hand over the bald curve of his head. “What is it with you today?”

The spoken-to shrugged, grinned, and surrendered his bishop. “I don’t know. I have to admit I’m quite focussed on other things right now.”

He almost hesitated to bring the other man’s hands to his lips and breathe a kiss onto the pale knuckles. Almost.

Bishop touched plastic. In the corridors of the prison, four shadows moved soundlessly through walls and locked doors, leaving a trail of sedated, no longer armed military men in their wake.

They were homing in on their destination.

Charles tsked. “Now that’s something you don’t get to see every time,” he remarked as he daintily closed his fingers around Erik’s black queen and lifted her from the board.

“Well, what can I say…” The metalbender was perched on the edge of his seat, elbows on his knees, wringing his hands as he stared at the carnage that was their match. “I like to surprise you, Charles.” He looked up, licked his lips. “Just as you like to surprise me.”

A queen was killed, and in the observation centre filled with screens and headsets, all linked to one cell and one cell only, heads were bashed together and limp bodies carelessly left to slump on the floor. The intruders didn’t stay long, only moved on with grins on their faces.

Their mission was almost complete.

“Checkmate.” With a low moan, Erik leaned back in his seat, popped his spine. When his vis-à-vis questioningly reached for his king, he nodded. “Go ahead, Schatz.”

Charles took the king, scooped him up in his hands, almost tenderly, but instead of putting him aside like he had done with all the other pieces, he took a hold of his head- and turned.

The whirr of minuscule machinery filled the narrow cell, circuits placed all around the room were scrambled and ceded sending out waves counteracting any mutation, and both men breathed lighter in relief. The metal bars in front of the window curled and curved, hummed, quivered. So did the foldable chair’s legs, the drawer’s handles, the various cameras and bugs and body heat monitors embedded in the walls.

“Ah.” Again, Magneto stretched, called forward strands of metal to wrap around his forearms and torso. “Das tut gut.”

_I can only agree, love_. Professor X started putting away the chessboard, a serene smile resting on his lips as he scanned their surroundings and then, like the moth enthralled by the flame, came back to rub up against the razor-sharp mind of one Erik Lehnsherr.

And just as he wheeled towards the cell door, his board game on his lap and – more importantly – his metalbender close behind, it swung open to reveal four mutants standing there.

“Brother dear.” A white smile stark against blue scales, golden eyes brighter than the sun. “The king… _is dead_!”

Behind Raven, her son grinned the same grin, and Kitty looked no less happy. Even Emma Frost, the Queen of Ice, of rigid eyes and motionless words, seemed pleased as she added steadily, “Long live the king.”

“Well done everyone!” The professor wheeled out of the now unnecessarily claustrophobic room, squeezed hands there, gave appreciating glances here. “Now, shall we depart?”

“We shall,” and everyone turned to Kurt who had his arms outstretched for everyone to grip on. “Let’s go home.”

The car drive back to the mansion was spent filling Erik in.

Mutant hate crimes had reached a crescendo, as had the policies being filed against them all over the world. Danger to a whole species was imminent, looming constantly, and they needed all the help they could get.

Erik Lehnsherr was crestfallen by the state of the world he had been removed from for half a year. And he was more than willing to set long-needed change afoot.

In the School, he would have had the possibility to sleep in his own room, in his own bed, surrounded by colourful wallpaper and tasteful furniture, with no bars in front of the window and his powers comfortably unfurled against each and any metal they could find.

He chose not to. Instead, he carried his suitcase with his sparse belongings they had found in the prison’s archive down to the ground floor and into another bedroom cluttered with books, scientific journals and long since forgotten cups of tea. The covers were warm tonight, as was the man at his side and the shoulder he could rest his head on. It was far from alone.

All that cut through the comfortable silence was the occasional rustling of paper when Charles, propped up against the headboard with pillows supporting his fragile back, turned another page. And then, Erik spoke.

“Charles, Geliebter,” he breathed, voice still grating from disuse, basking in the shudder and the giggle it earned him from the blue-eyed beauty.

“Yes, Erik, darling?”

“Today, I lost.”

At that, Charles put his book down and turned to him, sky eyes questioning.

“I lost just to win.”

They kissed after that, and then did so much more. Never, not for a second, did they let go.

And they wouldn’t, not in the near future. Not ever again. 


	26. Day 26: Hug?

It was a slow Saturday morning, dreary, drowsy, sky suffocated by grey, bulging clouds.

Yawning, Charles snuggled further into his scarf and thick jacket. His husband always made sure to wrap him up warm against the cold autumn air, just as he did with every one of his kids (if he could get a hold of them and if they didn’t protest too much against all the fatherly love).

The man in question stood some feet away on the very edge of the sidewalk, searching for a sign of their bus which had to arrive any minute now. Wanda and Pietro were completely engrossed in their phones, scrolling this way and that way, whilst Lorna was having a hard time not nodding off on her Dad’s lap. Charles smiled down at her, tightened his hold on the three-year-old, green-haired creature he had the luck to call his child.

Cars and time passed. Only their means of transport did not arrive.

Edie and Anya were by now probably wondering where they were, and if David had chosen to join them on the visit to his grandmother, he most probably would have been moaning about public transport and how they should have taken the car. Alas, their youngest son had more or less politely declined and brought forth the excuse of having loads of homework (he’d formulated the loads-part quite differently and had received one of Erik’s infamous “Language!”-lectures as a consequence, but Charles was fairly confident he had recovered from it by now, he was a resilient boy after all).

“Verdammt noch mal,” came a tired mutter from Erik who was currently scuffling the pavement with his feet.

Charles grinned and mocked covering Lorna’s ears with his hands. “Language, my love!”

All he got in response were a grunt and a resigned glare, then his husband turned around again. In his head, it seemed he was already running through every possible scenario of apology he could make towards his dear Mama and his eldest daughter. Charles shook his head. Really, Erik was the only man alive to think that a bus’s delay was his fault.

The bus was seven minutes late already, when a sudden but repressed snigger came from behind him. Twisting his head, Charles saw their twins crowded around a lamp post protruding from the sidewalk’s dingy flagstones. The slender metal stem was covered in stickers, of which one in particular seemed to have grabbed the teenager’s attention. White on black, an oblong rectangle, it displayed four simple symbols: _Hug?_

Wanda had the eerie quality of knowing when people were watching her, so it wasn’t long before she looked over and met her Dad’s eyes directly. An impish smile similar to the one her brother was displaying made her lips curl upward, and in her eyes, mischief twinkled.

_What are you up to now, young lady?_ Charles gently brushed back a strand of hair from the now snoring Lorna’s forehead.

The teenage girl all dressed in red poked her twin in the ribs, then answered, _Nothing, Dad. But you know how Paps likes to let his powers wander all the time? _

Charles nodded, inconspicuously tapped in on Erik’s nervous system to look at his metal sense splaying out and about, bizarrely mapping the metallic components in their closer surroundings… including the lamp post.

_So_, Pietro piped up, obviously linked to their private conversation through his sister, _how about we give him some hugs? He looks a bit nervous, to me at least, and you know how grumpy he gets when he has to let Grossmama wait- _

There, Charles cut his son off, because he knew of the boy’s inclination to ramble all his thoughts down so fast no one but he himself him could really follow. _You’re telling me you want to hug that lamppost? Because it’s metal? _

_And because it asks for it_, Wanda chimed in, determined amusement tainting her thoughts orange.

Pietro went on to tap his fingers on the _Hug?_-sticker with super-speed. _What she said!_

All the things that had probably touched that pole. All the people with their unwashed hands, and all the germs and bacteria that had founded colonies on the greyish paper-and-glue mix that’s in the process of peeling off…

But honestly, it was just a lamp post that was regularly disinfected by wind, rain and the cold (or at least this is what he hoped to be true). So, Charles gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. _Well, go on then_.

And just as both twins leaned in to wrap their arms around the metal in unison, receiving confused, amused and weirded-out glances from bystanders and passing pedestrians, Charles swivelled his head to keep an eye on his husband’s reaction.

For the first millisecond, Erik kept on staring wistfully up and down the road, standing on the very brink of the sidewalk.

Then, he gave a startled shudder so violent it almost brought him off his feet, surprise rearing its head and painting his thoughts a blueish pink. “Was zum-?” As if on instinct, he drew his arms tighter around himself, but Charles could feel his powers flaring up and out, all of a sudden a firm hold on everything metal in what had to be a 300-feet radius.

Remarkable. That was just what Erik Lehnsherr has been to him, and always would be.

After wildly jerking his head around, his husband finally discovered what had broken him out of his worrying. “Wanda, Pietro, _what_ do you think you’re doing?” Stiffly, he started in their direction, flinching every time they so much as brushed their cheeks or bare hands against the metal pole.

He was halfway there when he stopped abruptly and turned his glare on Charles. “Did you put them onto this?”

“Me?” Charles made a show of fluttering his eyelashes innocently. “Why, they had the idea themselves! How are you even thinking of me, darling?”

Without looking at the troublemakers, Erik ordered, “Hands off that insanitary thing. _Now_.” Then he bent down to press a kiss to Charles front and carefully pet Lorna’s hair, and just before he withdrew, he whispered, “You’re a terrible, _terrible_ man, and an even more terrible liar, Schöner.”

The twins were now having a full-on giggling attack. Charles watched his husband walk over to them, put his hands on his hips and his I’m-going-to-lecture-you-now expression on his face. “Kids. If you wanted a hug from me, you just had to say it.”

“Yes, Papa,” came it in breathy unison, and as Erik held open his arms, the two teenagers seemed to have forgotten their age and that hugging their fathers was the worst thing evereverever. And Charles watched the group hug and nearly got teary-eyed, because he really had a wonderful family, and the warm weight of his daughter on his lap and the knowledge that David was safe at home, and Anya safe with Edie, and Raven safe with Irene and Anne-Marie only added to that.

He was distracted by a movement on the road.

“Erik, children, I think our ride arrived.”

And with a muttered “Finally,” Erik began herding them towards the bus’s door.

Twenty minutes and a handful of Erik’s apologies later (which Edie had declined with just a shake of her head and a kiss on the cheek for everyone), they were sat in the kitchen of the cosy cottage Erik’s mother had inhabited for a decade now. The children and their Grandma were playing cards, Anya with Edie’s idle fat cat on her lap, Pietro and Wanda bickering and Lorna watching all of them with the consternated, utterly fed-up expression only a three-year-old could manage.

Erik and Charles, though, were preparing tea and biscuits in the kitchen. Charles was just pouring steaming water over the teabags as Erik walked up behind him, threw his arms around his shoulders and whispered in his ear, “Hug?”

Charles smiled. “Hug.”

Coming to bend down in front of him, Erik pulled him forward, wrapping his arms like a vice around his shoulders and torso and buried his nose in Charles’ nape. It was a warm and fuzzy hug, and Charles’ insides felt like they had just melted into a sappy goo as he reached out and hugged back, breathed in his beautiful husband’s scent and wished he never had to let go again.

And in a way, he didn’t have to. And he surely never would. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this idea seems weird, just know that it's based on an actual lamp post that has that exact Hug?-sticker on it for no apparent reason ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. I walk by it every day (but haven't hugged it yet)!


	27. Day 27: Swedish Massages from a German Guy (A Hot German Guy!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyhey, hope y'all are well!

Charles did not know it, but that late Thursday afternoon when he wheeled into the Health Centre’s lobby would change his life.

As every Thursday (and Tuesday), he checked in on the reception desk, forcing a smile for Azazel who sat behind it. After that, he took the elevator to the changing and massage room he had been assigned, undressed, with some difficulty laid face-down on the adjustable cot and waited.

In the end, he waited a quarter of an hour until the door finally swung open and he had to crane his neck to look behind him.

He wasn’t about to complain to Janos, no. The room was adequately heated, he knew how stressed the deaf massager was with about five forty-minute sessions per day and no one else of the same profession around, and honestly, he just couldn’t care less. There was worse than comfortably lying on a bed for a few minutes and just thinking and dreaming the time away.

_There was worse_. Like not getting out of bed at all. Or feeling so small and lonely after Raven left his hospital room that a mouse could have swallowed him.

Well, he looked around as best as he could, as far as his busted back would allow him, to greet Janos with a gentle nudge against his mind- except that it wasn’t Janos standing there in the doorway, in white, tight-fitting trousers and a shirt, and with a slightly intimidating smile on his face.

No, _definitively_ not Janos. If his sex drive hadn’t taken a downward plunge every bird of prey would have been jealous of, Charles would even have gone so far as to describe this man as a sex god possibly originated from Zeus’ brood (or something like that).

Before he could even so much as ogle at that unfairly trim waist and that cutting jawline and that overall slender, tall and entirely handsome body, terribly embarrassing himself in the process, he decided to speak up.

“Good afternoon. So, Janos won’t be attending me today?”

The slightly intimidating smile persisted. “Mr Quested is on a well-deserved vacation for the next two weeks.” The man stepped forward to close the door, then went around the room to put down a towel there, pick up an oil flask here, until he came to a halt at Charles’ side and extended a hand. “Erik Lehnsherr, pleased to meet you. From the looks of it, you’ll be receiving your next five Swedish massages from a German.”

Charles, propped up on his elbows, accepted the greeting. “Charles Xavier. Well, makes a good chance from receiving my Swedish massage from a Mexican, I guess.”

“Indeed.” Was there a spark of hunger in these grey-green-blue swirls of eyes? Charles did not know, and neither did he care. Lehnsherr continued. “You may call me Erik, if you wish. Now, shall we begin?”

Janos admittedly was a good masseur. Every time Charles had rolled out of the building after one of their sessions, he had felt better than ever; lax, warm, energy restored. A massage did wonders to his back, both beneath and above the scar tissue of his spinal cord injury, and he had read the articles before he had agreed to his first one. He therefore knew it was also the reason for the increased blood flow in his body, the slowing in the atrophying of his leg muscles, the smiles that now came more easily than before the doctors had recommended the therapy to him. Always, Janos did a good job, working out the knots and kinks in his back musculature with practised hand movements.

Erik though was something _entirely_ else.

The German’s fingers were long and nimble, and had Charles not been so occupied with turning into putty beneath his hands, he would have thought of other ways the man could make use of those digits. Alas, he was more or less saved by the absolute relaxation overcoming both his body and his mind as soon as Lehnsherr began kneading his shoulders, immediately rooting out the points of constant pain and smoothing them over.

If it hadn’t been utterly embarrassing and possibly a molestation of working personnel, Charles would have moaned out loud.

Lehnsherr moved down, rubbing at Charles’ ribcage, the dip of his lower back, gently sliding over the scar tissue there so as to not traumatise it further, then he moved on to below the injury, and Charles was suddenly very grateful that he had kept his boxer shorts on because the masseur just pulled down the towel for better access. There, he continued stroking and kneading, just above Charles’ hipbone. Every now and then, he would inquire if all was ok, if Charles was experiencing any pain or stiffness of some kind (Charles almost said yes to that last one but then dismissed it as a particularly perverse joke he probably shouldn’t be making, and also paraplegy and boners did not go well together).

All in all, Erik was a bloody good masseur, an artist with his hands, and the forty minutes were over far too fast.

Back down in the lobby, Charles was held up by Emma Frost, his consultant, and asked if everything had been to his liking today.

Outwardly, he smiled and nodded, then bid her farewell.

In the privacy of their minds, though, he sent what could be described as an embarrassed _Do all your masseurs have to be so… _striking_ in appearance?_

All he got in response was an innocent shrug and a lewd wink.

Not only did the massages go by too fast, Janos’ vacation did, too.

Of course, Charles didn’t have anything against his former massager. Mr Quested was able, always made him feel better, never twisted a nerve ending the wrong way. It was just that he hadn’t _missed_ him exactly.

He didn’t tell him, instead sent him a friendly greeting as the brunet walked through the door of the massage room, two weeks after Erik had suddenly entered Charles’ life.

It seemed the German had disappeared as abruptly as he had come.

Time flew by. Leaves tanned and fell to cover the concrete sidewalks with their fiery bodies, autumn vanished to give way to winter.

Charles only walked – or rather, wheeled – into Erik again one month before Christmas. It had been a long day, and for once, Janos’ skills had done little to lift his exhaustion. In the elevator and on the way through the lobby, he nearly fell asleep. His mental shields were drawn all the way up, and that was probably why he missed the metallic mind steering towards him from the side, deep in conversation with another health employee, until the tall lank German practically careened over his lap.

“Oh dear,” Charles said after everyone had recovered from the shock and straightened up, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t notice you there, are you alright?”

Waving the girl with large dragonfly wings away, Erik smiled, buried his hands in the pockets of his dapper winter coat. “More than alright. Actually, _I_ should have felt _you_ coming, your wheelchair is metal after all. But… hello, Charles, it’s nice to see you again.”

Charles didn’t know what to do. A handshake? Not an option, judging from the German’s body language. In the end, he settled for a nod. “Nice to see you again, too.”

Awkward silence ensued. Really, Charles was too tired to grapple for a conversation starter in his jumbled thoughts, so he left it to Mr Lehnsherr.

This the man obviously understood after some heartbeats. “Er… Is Janos treating your back well?”

“Very.” Charles kept on smiling because it seemed like a really good and charming idea and would maybe make up for his lack of words. “Though his skills have nothing on yours.”

“Really?” And there it was, that intimidatingly shark-toothed grin. “Consider me flattered. Why don’t you tell me more over a cup of coffee? I just finished work.”

Charles frowned. Bills had to be gone over, essays to be graded. One year after his accident, he still hadn’t quite sorted out the financial formalities that had been necessary to adjust the building housing his school to his changed circumstances of locomotion.

On the other hand, he had been sitting on his desk every evening for three weeks straight now. He should be allowed some breathing space, should allow _himself_ some breathing space.

He smiled, and this time he didn’t have to force it. “Alright. What café do you have in mind?”

After three hours of more than engaging conversation and Erik’s offer to give him an unpaid massage if he was free on Saturday, nothing was there to hold them back.

Erik was a mutant, a metallokinetic. In Charles’ opinion, his standpoint on mutant politics was a tad bit extreme, but he was also a man who could be argued with, who would listen, who would explain himself. He also had an irrational love for books, for children (he had four, of which three were currently attending Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, as they found out when discussing their professions) and for creating breath-taking pieces of metallic jewellery in his free time. All in all, Erik was a man with character, and Charles found himself sliding towards a fall (-in-love) he most probably would not recover from.

Oh, and then came the day of the massage.

First, Erik took them for a walk, and Charles bought them some more coffee and gloves for Erik because he had forgotten them at home (Erik resisted, of course, until Charles used his best expression of a kicked puppy on him and threatened to kiss his hands warm in front of the whole clothing store).

It was with red cheeks and a good mood that they finally pulled up to the Mansion on Graymalkin Lane, and before they could retreat to a more private room, Charles showed Erik around, presenting him with the School’s mission of establishing a safe space for mutant children all over the USA and, in a few years’ time, all around the world.

Erik was impressed. He told Charles so, then suggested they move upstairs onto a bed where he could give him his massage and show him just how _much_ he, uh, _admired_ his, err, _work_, and that pretty much was it.

Erik moved in with him one year later, and three years after that, they got married and invited the whole school. Raven was there, keeling over with laughter after she urged them to tell the story of their first meeting to the whole audience, generating beet-red faces and childish “Yuck!”s amongst the assembled crowd.

Their life was going well. Occasionally, they would swap places and it would be Charles who gave Erik a massage, under moaned instruction of the practised German. Apparently, he was a fast learner, earning loads of praise from his beautiful darling.

And later still, when they moved on to other _activities_, Charles earned himself _even more_ praise. As it seemed, Erik wasn’t the only one with skilled fingers. 


	28. Day 28: Help? (Under the Sea)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since nearly everybody seems to have written mermaid!Charles, here's my version of it!

On the day he almost drowned, Erik was nineteen years old.

They had set off early in the dawn to sail out to their hunting grounds, shallow waters near a shoal that had somehow managed to be washed up at least ten miles out in the wild ocean. There, under the waves, riches lay: pearl oysters. They grew at a depth of about thirty feet, could – in some rare, very rare cases – form pearls as big as a man’s fist and were easy to dislocate if one had a strong crowbar and sufficient air in his lungs.

And they did. Everybody on the sleek cockleshell they called their ship did, they had grown up at the edge of the sea after all. Their skin was thick and leathery, their shoulders were strong, their chests wide. When they dived, they only slightly looked out of place beneath the waves, shapes that moved quickly and with a purpose.

Erik was only one of them, he was like everyone else, with one exception: the blood that ran through his veins.

It was fae blood. And it sang to metal as much as metal sang to it.

Of course, this didn’t make him likeable. No one in the small fishers’ village nested into the austere cliffs facing the big sea like him, no one but his mother and his sister, and maybe his father would have loved him, too, if he hadn’t vanished back into the woods when Erik had only seen three summers.

No, he barely had family. And surely no friends.

These were the thoughts tearing through his head as he struggled to free his foot from the giant sea shell he had only noticed after its jaws had closed around his ankle.

Suddenly, it was cold underwater. Claustrophobic, even, and he couldn’t find his metal bar or else he could have levered himself out of this damned situation, but no, his sense had chosen this exact moment to go nuts and he could feel the ship’s nails twenty feet above him, his fellow divers’ bracelets, their blood pumping through their bodies-

He squirmed. He wreathed. He twisted.

He couldn’t break free. The clicking and creaking of the fish around him, the spasms his throat gave as it desperately thirsted for air, his right hand over his mouth and nostrils to keep himself from breathing in water, and he looked up and saw nothing but the bellies of the waves and their boat’s body. No figure diving down to rescue him. No helping hand outstretched.

Of course, they would choose this opportunity to let him die. It was convenient, after all. The fae bastard dead at sea, and no body they had to bury on their own lands, no curse they had to fear.

If he had known how, he would have cursed them all, but even if he had been taught the magic words by his father, he probably wouldn’t have been coherent enough anymore to even speak them, here, underwater, so alone and only him and the black, black waters.

He had to breathe. Open his mouth and breathe. He had to.

He did.

At first, it burned. Then a slippery body pressed up from behind him, and it didn’t burn anymore, because somebody was kissing him, sucking the salty water out of his throat.

He breathed. Took the time to inhale the air being fed to him through soft lips. Then, he opened his eyes and saw blue.

It wasn’t exactly a sea blue. It was a sky blue. It was the colour of someone’s eyes.

_Help?_ suddenly clanged through his head, and he was so startled he shrank back, away from the human who had saved him-

Except that it wasn’t a human. It was something, someone entirely else.

He could see gills on a slender neck, a pale, bare torso (a man, then), and, the most fascinating part, a tail. It was a pretty tail, if he could say so, long, winding, glittering blue and green and silver. It barely resembled that of a fish, and it almost didn’t look like a dolphin’s, and it may or may not have been similar to that of a shark.

The tail wiggled, and its owner glid forward, towards Erik. Erik tried to paddle backwards, but failed, and he cursed that damn pearl oyster even though he knew it just wanted to protect itself. Still, dumb sea shell. Now he wasn’t going to drown, but instead going to be eaten by fishman here.

A very handsome fellow, if he had had to describe the merman further, except for his smile that rivalled Erik’s grin. Yes, his lips were of such a deep red that the sun at dawn would have been jealous, but the teeth behind them were sharp like tiny, torturous knives. They were made to feed, and made to feed violently, with tearing bites tainting the water dark with blood.

Erik began to struggle again, to search for the crowbar he must have had lost on the fine white sand beneath. His heartbeat hammered in his head.

No use. The underwater stranger had grabbed him by his shoulders again, was looking deep into his eyes, licked his lips-

And inquired, _Help?_

One hand over his mouth again to keep himself from sucking in water, Erik gave up. He was going to die either way, he just wanted it to be made quick. Stilling, he grappled for an answer, came up with none and stared so hard it made his eyes burn.

The brunet (yes, fishman had a nice head of chestnut hair) stared back, then leaned in to seal his lips against Erik’s, pushing more air into his lungs. Erik took it, not sure if he should be grateful for the elongation of his agony.

_Help?_ it resounded in his mind, this time with a slightly impatient undertone.

To himself, Erik shrugged. What worse could there possibly happen? _Help_, he sent back shakily, hoping he hadn’t just inflicted half of his death fear on his temporary saviour.

Obviously not. Red lips detached from his, and with an elegant curl, the boy – he had to be around Erik’s age, if not younger even, but of course with merfolk you could never know – dove down and towards the pearl oyster’s mouth. Erik windmilled with his arms to stay upright and watched as nimble fingers tickled and pried the clam’s two halves open, all the while keeping a secure grip on his ankle.

Ah, yes. Should have been no surprise to him that he wouldn’t be let off the hook gently.

His foot was free, trailing wisps of blood behind it, and the merman clambered up his body, clearly unwilling to let Erik go anytime soon.

He received another kiss, another gust of air, and slowly, slowly, the haze in his head began to clear up. He could make it. If he kicked that stranger away violently enough and used all the force in his arms, shoulders and thighs, he could probably make it up to the surface where the others could pull him onto the ship.

Probably.

Then, like a knock on his mind’s door (if his mind had had a door, that is), two words blossomed in between his thoughts. _Charles. You? Erik. _

Erik pulled back to nod, felt something smooth and round being pressed into his hands, and suddenly, the boy’s, or _Charles_’, grip on him went lax and fell away.

All he caught furthermore of his saviour was a glance of his glittering fish scales, and a smile so sharp it could have cut through diamond, and then he was off, paddling frantically towards the sun, the open sky, the air.

After this incident, Erik Lehnsherr was a made man.

From the merman’s final gift, a pearl bigger than a human’s head with a more unblemished lustre than a new-born’s skin, he could buy himself and his family a house in a nearby harbour city, where the whole continent’s spice and precious metals’ commerce was handled. There, he met others like him, half-bloods, pariahs, people with special powers that went unnoticed in the crowd of the sprawling metropole’s streets.

He did what any sensible man with a knack for the high seas would do and founded a fishers’ corporation.

Business went well, very well even. He found a descendant of a deaf wind god and a half-demon to help him on his trawler, a cursed fairy to run his errands and a human diamond to keep his finances and the intentions of his customers in check. Every morning, he would get up when the city’s streets were still dark and relatively quiet and wander down to the harbour, where he would meet Janos and Azazel and untether their ship. Later in the day, they would meet Angel who had ferreted out more potential customers, and even later, Emma would show up at their boat’s berth and recount the deeds of the day which, most of the time, were very profitable.

Nothing could have gone better. And yet, Erik felt something was missing.

He never married.

On the day he pulled an extraordinary catch aboard, Erik was thirty-one years old.

A quarter of an hour ago, they had wanted to turn their cutter around and head home to the port, but Azazel had insisted that today was a particularly good day to get a hold of some rainbow octopi, that he could feel it in his bones and that they should trust him because he was half-demon after all.

They didn’t catch any molluscans. No, when they pulled their net aboard, laden with some seaweed and nothing more, they quickly realized that the nothing more was indeed a person thrashing around in the yarn.

Like the decent human beings (ok, part-human beings) they were, they gasped and got the hooks to pull the net on board, and when Erik bent down to carefully unfold it so as to not rip it apart, he was pretty surprised to see a faintly familiar face staring back at him.

Blue eyes over rose red lips, and a pale complexion that would have made the moon envious. Only once had he met such a being.

_Help?_ the creature sent over, tail still halfway entangled in the ropes, but nevertheless calmly propped up on its- his elbows, eyeing Erik and his fellow fishermen with barely veiled interest.

“Now that,” Azazel mumbled and bent down to get a closer look, “that looks like it could earn us some money.”

“No.” Erik shook his head. “No. Guys, I’ve got a lot to explain to you, and this… _man_ is one of those things. We let him go.”

Janos frowned, gestured with a confused pout.

“Because-” Erik gritted his teeth- “he saved my life, and I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.” That said, he lifted the last of the net of the boy’s – now more or less an adult man – body, grabbed him under his shoulder and under what should have been his knee pits but weren’t, and carried him over to the railing.

Before he could let him (_Charles_, he suddenly remembered) slide over it and into the water, two strong hands grabbed his shoulder and his jaw, forced his head down and onto red, red lips behind which small sharp teeth lurked.

It was a nice kiss. Soft, a bit salty, and over far too fast.

Then, with a wet slide, Charles writhed in Erik’s grasp and disappeared into the waves with a plash of water.

When he turned, Erik got both bedraggled and lewd stares from his two companions.

“Ah-ha,” Azazel purred and scratched his chin, “now I really want to hear that story.”

Beside him, Janos nodded emphasisingly.

One week after he had cleared up the misunderstandings over a few generous beakers of mead, someone knocked at Erik’s door. It was late afternoon, and he had just been about to dive into bed and not get up for a few hours, so he seriously contemplated just staying there, under the blankets, and let the one who had knocked rot outside his house.

Of course, he didn’t. No, he went down and pulled the door open by its iron lock how the civilised citizen he was.

What awaited him on the other side was very far from his expectations. His expectations had been that of an unnerving preacher or a dubious peddler. Instead, he got a man with milky skin and a too-sharp smile sitting in front of his doorstep in what seemed to be a chair on wheels (oh, and he was clothed and had legs what made him look eerily human, considering that the two last times they had met he had very much been in his birthday costume and with a tail constituting the lower part of his body).

He gaped. Charles giggled (a fascinating sound, if you have ever had the chance to hear a merperson giggle). Emma standing behind him smiled and said in her sickly silky voice, “I believe you two have met already. Twice. Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t talk in much more than feelings, he yet has to learn the local tongue.”

Erik nodded dumbly, then startled as someone chirped in his mind, _Help?_

He looked down and into Charles’ sky-blue eyes, more beautiful than the sea could ever blaze. Really, he was consternated and did not know what else to do than to grasp his former saviour’s hand in greeting (which, in retrospect, turned out to be the right thing to do), but something he knew: That certain something – that certain someone – which had been missing in his life… He’d found him.

Charles, in his makeshift wheelchair, smiled up at him, sharp teeth glistening. And Erik smiled back and agreed, _Help_. 


	29. Day 29: Take Pride in Who You Are!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be a bit experimental, but bear with me (:

Jubilee had just left the shopping mall and was walking down the road when a nondescript black van screeched to a halt in the middle of the street and the whole sidewalk erupted into a cacophonous crowd of fleeing civilians.

Of course, this could have only happened in New York, and just when she would be on her way home. Great. Sighing, she dove to shelter behind a fallen sheet iron table a café owner had probably set outside for a more peaceful purpose, but well, she would take what she could get. No use in running anyway, with everyone else already going nuts and trampling over everything and everyone.

Ugh. Crowd panics. How she hated those.

Carefully, she peeked over her makeshift shield’s upper edge- and was surprised to see that for once, it didn’t seem to be the Avengers stirring things up.

In fact, there was no gold-and-red iron armour in sight, or a Dorito in a white-blue-red costume. Not even the mountain of green muscle that would spit drool everywhere when it screamed. No, the dark delivery truck had seemingly stopped because something had shot out of its passenger window. Something relatively big and human-shaped, now groaning about twenty feet from its point of departure.

Jubilee’s eyebrows rose. Now that was something you didn’t get to see every day: An invisible attacker.

Who wasn’t _that _invisible, she noticed when someone clambered on top of the van, dragging another man in black protective wear – the driver maybe? – with them and proceeding to kick him from the top of the vehicle.

And then the rear guard began to show up. From two side streets, four SUVs spilt, braking just short of smashing into the delivery truck. They clearly weren’t on the assailant’s side, and the figure on the van, clothed in a black form-fitting jumpsuit and a balaclava, must have been fully aware of this, because she – it was a woman, judging from her muscled curves and the long red hair spilling from under her face mask – crouched down, taking shelter.

Then, she did something wholly unexpected and, if you were a fervent maintainer of fighting strategies, utterly dumb: She didn’t slide off the van to get out of shooting range, instead, she looked up to what had to be a city building’s edge of the roof and yelled, “Mags! Two down, I could need some help!”

At first, Jubilee couldn’t make any sense of this exclamation. Then, she could.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She looked up- and there he was, in all his glory, magnetic powers surging and simmering in the air as he descended: Magneto, the infamous pro-mutant terrorist.

Jubilee gaped.

His magenta cape billowed behind him in a soft breeze, his muscles were strung taut under his spandex suit. Erik Lehnsherr made a striking figure indeed, glistening helmet and all.

This only happened once in a lifetime. A one-off opportunity, and Jubilee took it and started fumbling for her phone.

Meanwhile, the feared mutant leader made short work of the van and the shotguns of the armoured men piling out of the SUV’s, ripping them up through the air. The woman had glid down from the vehicle in one smooth movement and was now giving out kicks and punches, her biceps bulging under the black, seemingly protective fabric of her overall, and honestly, it made her look pretty badass.

Finally, after digging through all her yellow raincoat’s pockets, Jubilee got a hold of her smartphone and pressed the home-button. The screen lit up.

Quickly, she turned her eyes back on the battle scene and just so managed to deflect a uniformed body with one of her bursts of transitory plasmoids, creating a small firework in the process. Nobody noticed, too occupied with either beating up or being beaten up. She cursed. That had been close!

The van’s back doors gave a tortured squeak, then it peeled open and away, Lehnsherr immediately going off to disappear in the vehicle’s shipping space. The lady in black was left alone to finish off the last few defenders (for which, Jubilee discovered, she had no sympathy at all because their clothing basically screamed bad guys).

A quick slide of her finger over her lock screen, and her camera popped up. Jubilee hesitated, then reminded herself that she would probably never get to see something like this again. Alright then.

She edged her phone over her shelter’s skirt and pressed the record button.

The bystander’s video is shaky, a bit blurred. It’s filmed in vertical format and looks like it’s been captured from behind a tipped-over café table.

There’s a street, in New York. On it, demolished vehicles and motionless bodies that look like agents of an undercover organisation on which’s bad side you definitely wouldn’t want to get. There are five still standing, rather bedraggled, from the looks of it.

The camera is focussing on a black van, one that looks like it’s tumbled straight out of a bad action movie and into the real world.

And then, in the middle of the whole chaos, a woman in black is kicking one of the still conscious uniformed figures in the face, with a full-body twist that makes it look like she’s taken decades of martial art lessons (and who knows, maybe she has).

Only fifteen seconds later, not one of the last five men is conscious anymore, all of them crumpled heaps on the floor. The lady stands alone, tall and proud, in the middle of the battlefield. She hasn’t noticed the camera trained on her, not yet.

A screeching sound, and the van’s backside crumples in on itself, slowly, as a man in magenta and red steps out and onto the concrete. In his arms, another man, bald, beaten, but conscious.

The woman turns around, nods to the one every watcher must have recognised as Magneto by now and asks, “Is he alright?”

A shaky nod gets sent back. “He is.” And then the most feared mutant terrorist collapses to his knees, in the middle of the road, holding the man who has to be Professor Xavier, the renowned mutant geneticist who had been kidnapped by the Purifiers one week prior, close to his chest.

Suddenly, the lady in black turns around, eyes homing in on the camera.

The person filming gives a surprised gasp. It sounds like a girl.

Reaching up, the unknown fighter grabs a hold of her balaclava and pulls.

Like streaks of blood in pure water, her hair unfurls to billow behind her. Her skin is blue, azure like lapis lazuli, and her eyes… the sun can’t compare to their golden brightness.

“Don’t stop filming,” comes the compelling demand from blue lips. “We’re not going to hurt you. We come in peace.”

Behind her, on the grey pavement, Erik Lehnsherr is in tears as Professor Xavier strokes his cheek, laying in his lap, useless legs splayed on the ground. His suit is torn, he has a black eye, but he is smiling as if he had no care in the world.

“My name,” the blue woman continues, “is Mystique. I am a mutant.” Her voice is smooth, soft, like velvet, but there’s an edge to it, an edge that will cut your throat if you do not listen to what she is saying.

There’s the sound of police sirens garbled in the background.

Reacting swiftly, Magneto coops up his lover in his arms, but without glancing behind, Mystique lifts a hand. _Stay_.

Xavier’s eyes are very blue as he looks up to her, then back to meet Magneto’s gaze, where they turn eerily soft.

Mystique’s voice raises until it can be heard clearly, without the static of the recorder’s phone microphone. “Yes, I am a mutant. Today, I have saved one of my own kind from the bigoted group of perverts who call themselves Purifiers, but who do nothing but dirty _Homo sapiens’_ heritage. And I have a message for the world, and it goes like this: If you are of a different nationality, a different colour, a different gender, a different sexuality…” She paused, glancing behind at where Xavier was wiping the tears from Magneto’s face. “If you are _different_…” Turning back, her glare directed at the camera was fiercer than ever. “If you are _mutant, _stand up! Do not stand for those who discriminate, who destroy, who slaughter your own kind, no, _stand against them_!”

In the background, Xavier props himself up on his elbows, pulls Lehnsherr down to him by his chin, and kisses the mutant leader’s lips. He does not stop stroking his cheeks, and a particularly perceiving observer might see the tension ooze out of Magneto’s shoulders, out of his cautious perch on the concrete.

“Take pride!” Mystique takes up again, “Take pride in _who you are_: Mutant and proud! And do not worry, for we will be there and watch over you, _we_, the _X-Men_!”

All throughout her speech, she has never lifted a hand, never shaken it against the heavens, never pointed at the camera. She has just remained completely still, legs apart, posture upright and strong. Solid, unmovable, like a rock in the surf: the picture-perfect image of reliability, of a lioness willing to do anything to defend her cubs.

In the background, Xavier clears his throat, and anyone who leans in closely now and listens attentively is just so able to understand his words. “Raven, dear, thank you very much. I am unspeakably glad to see you.”

Magneto nods. “But it’s about time we left.” Gripping the Professor tighter, he stands up.

Mystique nods back, shoots a last glance at the person behind the camera. “Come join us if you want. If you ever feel unsafe and hunted down. You’ll know where to find us.” And with that, she turns and joins the two other men who have already lost touch with the ground, and silently, the three mutants ascend.

The camera follows them until they levitate over a rooftop and out of sight.

“Wow,” comes from the person who is recording, a breathless, stricken sound from deep within.

The sound of police sirens grows louder, blue light flashes on the dark concrete and bodies lying motionless. With a huff, the cameraman (camerawoman?) scrambles up, blurring the picture and tilting the camera.

A first police car speeds around the corner, comes to a halt just a few feet from the battlefield.

The bystander capturing all on camera starts running. A frantic “Aww cheese!” is the last thing to be heard, then the recording cuts off.

Even though the video by an anonymous bystander has been uploaded only three hours ago, YouTube announces that it has reached one million views already. In the comment section, both pro- and anti-mutant users are going haywire, some condemning the action of the supervillain Magneto, some proclaiming that he has indeed been right all along. Other speculate who the mysterious recorder and uploader may be, if they really are a mutant, if he or she has already enrolled at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, or is about to (the ones typing out the latter are the closest to the truth).

Of course, then there are the ones drooling over Mystique’s curves, over her beautiful features, over the air of dominance she exudes. Most of those commenters are lesbians or bisexuals.

The shaky recording has become famous overnight and will serve as fodder for the mutant debate far into the distant future. Mutants, it turns out, are just humans, too. They love, they worry, they want to be safe. And Mystique’s message, and Magento and Professor Xavier's kiss, will fuel minds all over the world.

And the video’s title reads “Mutants: Take Pride”. 


	30. Day 30: Your Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned: 99% of this isn't even Cherik, but it feels like I'm coming down with something and I can't really think straight :|

The day your mother kicked you out was also your thirteenth birthday.

For one year exactly, you had managed to conceal what you were turning into. With long sleeves and skin-tight jeans, you had covered the shimmery golden scales that had begun to sprout only days after you had turned twelve, and the phosphorous green bleeding into your eyes, killing the colour in your pupils, had been hidden behind sunglasses, then behind your bangs growing messy and messier.

Only your growing flexibility you had displayed openly, used to your advantage. Your gymnastics competitions had been the only opportunities your parents had paid any attention to you, after all.

But of course, your father had to walk in on you one day, eventually. And he did, on the morning of the day that was supposed to be a happy one (one of the few), just as you were brushing your hair, in nothing but your old ratty dressing gown.

You had been careful, really. All the time. But just this once, you weren’t, and that was what cost you your home, your life, your family.

Your father didn’t shout, just stared, probably horrified into what his sweet child had turned.

Your mother _did_ shout, though. And cry, and scream bloody murder. And then, she set an ultimatum: Fifteen minutes, not one second more, in which you had to pack your suitcase and go, leave, never come back.

You did what she said. Momma had always, always known best. Of course, this time wasn’t different.

No tears. You didn’t cry, not when you dragged what you had been able to salvage from your room down the front door steps, not when the lock slammed in to place behind your back (a horribly final sound), not when you turned at no-longer-your garden gate and walked down the street. Every step carried you farther away, farther from your homework, your childhood photographs, from the small sweet suburban house in which you had hurt so much, always.

Fifteen minutes aren’t much to gather the important things. Some clothes, some necessities, your stash of money, your favourite comic books.

And, in your hand, crumpled and faded, the prospect you’ve been staring at for the last six months since a woman with black skin and blank white eyes had held an informational presentation in your school’s food court.

It’s colourful, red and yellow, with pictures that once had been glossy (unfortunately, their glamour hadn’t survived your jeans’ back pockets) and much text, written in a bold, strong font. And its headline reads “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters: A New Family”.

  


Now, it wasn’t like you had high hopes when you hailed a taxi and let it take you to 1407 Graymalkin Lane. But three hours later, even the crunch of the gravel under the car’s wheels as it sped up the driveway sounded expensive in your ears, and then you got out and the driver deposited your luggage at your side and then swerved down the lane again, and you were all alone.

In front of you, the mansion accomodating the school stood, your only hope. The building was huge. Enormous. Gigantic. It was towering over you, and it looked expensive, almost pretentious, with its polished windows, its flawless lawn, its neatly dressed students loitering around intricately curled iron coffee tables placed on the grass. All that made you feel small. Very small.

There was no way you would be accepted to this wonderful, fantastic place. _No way_.

The door creaked open wide, making you jump back. These days, you were easily startled, and it was no surprise.

In the doorway, a man stood. Or wait, no, he was sitting, in a chair with wheels on it, a wheelchair, you remember proudly.

Eerily, he wasn’t shouting at you to disappear, to go where you came from (_you scum)_. He was smiling. And his eyes (which were very, _very_ blue) were smiling, too.

Then, he spoke. He didn’t do it on the outside, though. He did it on the inside, and suddenly, you didn’t feel alone at all, not anymore, because he was there, with you.

_Hello, dear. My name is Charles Xavier, I am the headmaster of this school. We have been waiting for you. _

For you? There was no way they could have been waiting for you! You were grey, you were boring, you were (the worst of the worst) a _mutie_!

Also, you didn’t have any money. You couldn’t afford this, you couldn’t pay for this.

You should just have turned around and left.

But you didn’t, because Mr Xavier was speaking again, and this time, he did it out loud, and his voice was so warm that you wanted to stay and bask in it, just for a few seconds, just for a few minutes.

“I see you have brought your luggage already. How very smart of you! Like this, you can move in immediately, and don’t worry about the pay: We have a scholarship program here.” He extended a hand.

Hesitant, you stumbled forward. Did he want you to shake it? You didn’t know why he would want to shake your hand, in the last few hours, the disgusting scales had multiplied, crept over your wrists, over your knuckles. It was like cancer, or something worse.

You did shake his hand, though, and it seemed to have been the right decision. His smile didn’t waver, and for one moment, he even glanced down, at the gold glistening on your skin, and he looked like he had just seen something beautiful.

“Logan’s on his way to pick up your suitcase. And don’t worry, we’ll send someone to gather the rest of your things. Now, do you want me to show you the school and your room?”

It was like your heart had been filled with stones the whole time, and now, they were slowly falling away, into your bloodstream, dissolving into harmless little bits.

You nodded. And then, you smiled.

And Mr Xavier said, “Welcome home.”

  


The first night brought tears.

You had already started to wonder where they had disappeared off to, where they had been stuck, your little wet friends. Because in the past, they had often been the only ones keeping you company, in the locker room, at the kitchen table when no-one was home, on the way to school.

And now they were here, too, in the bed- your bed, in the room- your room, in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.

It was nearing midnight. Under the blanket, your skin was raw from where you had scratched at it, trying to remove those dumb, glittery scales. You wished you had never grown them, and if you had known any bad words, you would have used them in that very moment, under your breath.

You were also considering gauging your dumb glowy eyes out. Would the hurt be worth not being stared at disgustedly anymore? Probably.

Oh, and also, you were crying, muffled, head pressed into your pillow. You wished you would just die, just suffocate, just stop being here.

You didn’t want to wake up the others.

The others were three. One boy, two girls. The boy, Gregory, looked fairly normal, except that he was bald, like Professor Xavier. One of the girls – Annabelle –, though, had a shock of grey hair that floated when she frowned or pouted or laughed, or did anything at all, in fact. And if you listened closely, Sophia, the other one, had a throat that clicked with every breath she took. First, you had thought she was sick, like your Grandma who died when you were seven. But then, Sophia had gone to take a shower, and she had begun to sing.

She had sung beautifully, like a bird in the dawn. Her voice was slim, twirling, and when you had squinted, you had been able to see colours spilling from under the bathroom’s door.

But not one of those three were like you. They were beautiful, with wide smiles, open eyes. They weren’t small like you, weren’t grubby like you, weren’t _covered in scales like you_.

You weren’t like them.

And now, you were crying under the blanket, and you had woken up Annabelle. You could see her get up in the dark (which wasn’t _that_ dark, you didn’t understand why she had to grope her way over to you, and anyway, you wished she wouldn’t). Her hair was floating again, and the corners of her lips were far, far down.

When she arrived at your bedside, you curled further into yourself. You didn’t want her to yell at you.

“Hey,” she whispered, “are you okay?”

You nodded. If you had spoken, your throat would have been ripped in half.

Then, she sat down, and you wanted to scream for her to leave you alone, to please not hit you, to not say any bad words even though you deserved them.

“Your eyes are funny,” she said, and then she lied, “They glow in the dark, that’s so cool. And your skin is like gold. I wished I looked like you.”

“Why,” you hiccuped, “why are you so nice?”

She frowned. Her hair floated higher, making her look like a tree, with branches full of leaves. “Because,” she chirped, “the Professor tells us to be nice, and-” And there, she smiled, a lovely little smile that made her locks undulate - “because I think you are nice.”

There were fewer tears rolling out of your eyes now. You looked at her, didn’t say a word.

She kept on smiling. “Do you want me to sleep in your bed with you? Professor Xavier says cuddling people makes them happy.”

You thought about your mother. She would never have hugged you. You thought about your father. He had hugged you, sometimes. But his eyes had always been far, far away.

You stopped thinking, and nodded.

  


With Annabelle’s arm over your chest, you slept very well that night.

  


It’s autumn. The light has turned golden, the leaves are making heaps on the ground through which one can plow with the other children. It’s much fun, especially when Annabelle does it with you, and Gregory and Sophia.

Now, though, the vast grounds outside are grey, with clouds hanging heavy in the sky. Today’s lessons have already finished, so your friends and you have decided to go to the common room, because there’re boardgames, tea and fruit, and all the other students. Sophia and you are sitting on the couch, and Gregory and Annabelle are sitting on cushions on the floor, and your cardgame is sitting on the coffee table between you. You’ve won already, and now you’re bored while the others still play and scream and – when neither Professor Xavier nor Mr Lehnsherr nor Ms Darkholme are listening – call each other names. The cushions are soft, you’ve got lots of space to lay down, that’s why you’re currently pulling your leg behind your back and up, up, up, until your heel touches the back of your head.

You’re what Professor Xavier calls a contortionist, someone with soft bones and joints. All over your body, your scales glitter, healthy, polished, because you shower every day and then slather them in a special cream Dr McCoy has given you. Yes, your skin goes beautifully with your cool eyes, that glow in the dark and can see an ant on the ground from seventy feet away.

Then, you remember that the Professor is actually sat on the other end of the couch and sit up again, almost knotting yourself together in the process, but it doesn’t matter because you’re still a bit embarrassed about being able to move when he can’t.

As if he had read your thoughts (which he probably has), he turns looks up from his book to smile at you. “That was impressive, my dear! If you keep practising like that, you’ll soon be able to curl in on yourself like a snake.”

“Schatz,” suddenly comes from the doorway, “there you are!” And Mr Lehnsherr, the teacher for German and self-defense class, and the school’s cook on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, strides over to them with his long, wiry legs to drop a kiss on his husband’s forehead, then sit down beside him. “I just wanted to talk to you about that new movie, it’s coming to the cinema in one week.” After that, he turns to you, wide, toothy grin ready on his lips. “Hello there, Goldengel,” and he reaches out to brush a look of your short but unruly chestnut hair back behind your ear. “How does it feel, living here with us for one year already? We very much like having you in our family.”

You smile, then frown when his words sink in. “One year already?” you rasp (you still don’t talk much, but why should you? The others understand you anyway).

“One year already,” the Prof confirms and slides an arm around Mr Lehnsherr’s waist, then plasters himself against his side (yuck, you just hope they won’t start kissing in front of you). “And you’ve made big progress in the time we had you here. Also, the school wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“The school,” his husband murmurs and drapes his arms around Mr Xavier’s shoulders, “wouldn’t be the same without any of our students. I wish they would stay here forever.”

You know the two are in their own world again when the Prof looks up, blue eyes locking with green-grey ones. “They are family. They will never truly leave us.”

Then they bend up respectively down to kiss, and you turn before you can see it because _big eeewww_! Also, the others have finally finished their game, so you’ll join them again (and, most likely, win again, because you’re really good at this).

You smile, and when you distribute the cards, Annabelle smiles back and asks, “Are you happy?”

It surprises you, just a little, but you say it anyway.

“Yes, I’m happy.” And then, as an afterthought, you glance over at the Prof and his husband and add, “Because you’re my family.”


	31. Day 31: Halloween (You Can’t Escape It... Don’t Even Try)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, looks like this is it... Thank you to everyone who has read, for being here through this month, for leaving all that love in my inbox, and of course, many thanks to the organisers of this amazing event! This has been an October I won't ever forget ❤️ 
> 
> The nature in this ficlet I have shamelessly copied from the Etang de la Gruère, a small sweet lake in the canton of Jura in Switzerland. I don't actually know if there's any marshland in the USA, but oh well, literary freedom and all!  
And here's the link to the song, The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore) covered by the Walker Brothers, which has been the inspiration for this work's title and of which some lines are mentioned at the very end of this chapter. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Charles smiled. In front of him, the serene landscape of the marshland stretched on and on, and at his side, his husband stood, hiking boots on his feet and multi-functional backpack slung over his shoulders.

_Beautiful, isn’t it?_ Charles remarked, caressing Erik’s orderly brainwaves. It was as though they had soaked up the view, the lake shimmering right in front of them, nested between the firs and blueberry bushes growing in the soft peat, and now they were smooth and glinting, just like the still water. _It was a good idea to miss out on Halloween in the school and come here after all._

He got a grunt in response, then Erik turned to him, nose buried in his scarf, and even though Charles couldn’t see his lips, he knew they were curled up in a smile when his husband muttered, “Yes, Geliebter, but tell me, are you sure you’re warm enough?”

Charles grinned wider. “Erik! I’m not a child anymore, you don’t need to go all mother hen on me. But,” he admitted upon seeing his metalbender’s face wrinkle in a frown, “thank you for your concern, love.”

Their breaths were a stark white against the cool, clear autumn air as Erik tugged the shawl back from his face and leaned down, kissing Charles’ forehead, the tip of his nose, both his cheeks and then, finally, finally, his mouth. His lips were warm, searing even, and for a moment, Charles forgot all about their breath-taking surroundings. Forgot all about their hike around the small lake, about the sky and the clouds trapped in its water, about the squelching of the ground under his wheels when Erik wasn’t levitating him over roots or particularly slippery stretches.

The forest was lush with evergreen needles, but all he saw and felt and tasted was Erik. All that mattered was Erik. Erik, Erik, Erik.

  


They had arrived in the small, cosy hotel one day ago, just before dusk, and now they were comfortably huddled under their covers, exhausted from their hike and more than grateful that Raven, Hank and the whole teachers’ team had been willing to organise the school’s Halloween party while they noped it out of there.

Charles couldn’t stand the spookiest nights of all. Not because he was easily scared, or because he didn’t approve of the sweets, or because he had never gotten the chance to go trick and treat in his childhood (an alcoholic mother and a violent stepfather hadn’t really encouraged such activities). No, he just didn’t like the whole commerce centred around the last day of October, and also, the kids staying up all night had given him terrible headaches the years prior.

Erik just tagged along. As long as his husband was unhappy, he couldn’t live with himself. So, he had booked their little trip as a surprise gift which, as expected, had been welcomed with open arms (and other, well, _treats_, but that was nobody’s business).

Now, they were somewhere “right out in the sticks,” as Charles had exclaimed with a happy smile when their car had pulled up to the tiny house at the fringe of the marshland, and their hike had been more than successful. There were only few other guests around at this time of the year, so Charles would be able to sleep without disturbances (also, there was not a shred of spooky decoration to be seen, except maybe for the model of the bog body which’s discovery in the turf extraction site had brought the region some modest fame, but that didn’t really count).

Actually, it was already nearing eleven o’clock (yes, it was sad that they considered this time of day respectively night to be late, but hey, they weren’t getting any younger). Erik had been yawning constantly for the last quarter of an hour, and Charles, too, felt his eyelids grow weary of staying open just so he could read his book.

Finally, and with a huff, he closed his the heavy paperback, put it on the nightstand and turned to his husband who was intimately, warmly nestled against his side, his eyes already drooping closed. Carefully, he wormed his power into Erik’s fuzzy thoughts and inquired, _Erik, darling, shall I put the lights out?_

With a click, the bedside lamp was turned off, and Charles could just so make out Erik’s raised finger in the twilight. He smiled. _Thank you, my love_.

_Goodnight_, it came back groggily, _and sweet dreams, Schatz_.

Scooting down lower and pulling his cushion under his head, Charles placed a last kiss on his husband’s closed eyelids. _Oh, I’ll have those, don’t worry_.

  


Indeed, he did dream, and it was quite nice. There was the sun (remarkable that he still remembered how it looked, considering they hadn’t had an hour of sunshine since the end of September), the dark water of the marsh lake lapping against his bare skin and, of course, Erik. Erik, who was with him, always, and would be so forever.

He was ripped from that indulgent realm by his protesting bladder (one of many advantages of his telepathy was that he could travel down his nerve endings even though they didn’t quite connect to his brain anymore, so, he was able to tap in on his bodily conditions more reliably than if he had had to set regular notifications on his phone to remind himself of nature’s call). Carefully, he heaved himself into his wheelchair and went to the bathroom.

And just as he was about to slip back under the covers, he heard a strange noise from the hallway.

It sounded like something hard, spikey scraping over the wooden panels, claws maybe, or bones. And then-

A breath. Or a groan. And it didn’t sound like it came from this reality.

Goosebumps on his skin, and Charles shrank back. It was impossible, it couldn’t be, he was imagining things... but there was something, _someone out there_. And supernatural or not, they did not sound friendly.

He unfurled his telepathy, groped and grappled his way towards the corridor, through their room’s door, over the carpet, until he found what he had been looking for.

He found it, and at the same time, he didn’t. There was a void where its toughts should have writhed, like worms, small, disgusting, slippery, but still: thoughts.

But there was a shape, long, lanky, he felt it, nearly saw it (interesting, he had never known his telepathy could work as some kind of periscope, defining form, colour, texture of what it was flying towards), and somehow, it was familiar. Seemed familiar, and completely foreign at once.

Charles got up. He had to investigate, he just had to, he had to keep Erik safe (the man hadn’t had the best childhood... or had he? Suddenly, remembering was hard, all was foggy in his head). Erik, his husband, who – safe and sound – was sleeping in their bed under the covers in a dream-

Except that he wasn’t. Charles stumbled over to the nightstand, fumbled for the light switch (funny, he hadn’t noticed that their suitcases were open, clothes strewn all around the room), found it, tainted the room in an oddly cold light (he didn’t know why it was so cold, probably just his imagination).

Erik’s side of the bed was untouched. The covers were smooth, the comforter still flawlessly thrown over them, as well as the ton of tiny scatter cushions at the head end. It was as though a line had been drawn in the middle of the mattress, with a ruler, and a good one at that, neatly separating Charles’ mess from the nothingness where his husband should have been.

He felt very small all of a sudden, and didn’t even question why the window was gone when he turned round and round, whispering, “Erik. Erik, are you there?”

No answer.

A breath, ragged, chopped up, clawed its way up his throat. His legs were shaking, his arms were shaking, his hands were shaking. He had to hug himself to keep from unravelling like a ball of yarn as he staggered over to the door, opened it without touching it even though that was usually Erik’s move-

Erik, who was standing right in front of him, on the opposite wall of the hallway. Face gaunt in the greyish light from overhead, he looked dead, until he raised his eyes to meet Charles’.

Eyes that were... empty. Devoid.

Charles felt like clawing his own eyes out. He reached, strained, his mind did, and still there was nothing. Nothing but the hollow of the empty man’s empty skull with empty thoughts.

_Erik?_

It bounced around the bony dome.

_Erik_.

No answer. Not even a twitch of the eyelid.

_Erik! _

And then, finally, horribly, words that Charles didn’t want to hear.

HE’S GONE HE’S LEFT NO USE CALLING FOR HIM.

_Click-clack_, made Erik-who-wasn’t-Erik’s jaw as the letters streamed from its lips.

“No. No, Erik please, please listen to me.” Charles wrung his hands, then stopped because his skin was coming off in flakes.

NO ERIK NO MORE ERIK NEVER AGAIN ERIK.

“Why?” Charles rasped, forlorn. His eyes were wet.

YOU’RE NOT WORTH IT YOU CAN’T ESCAPE IT DON’T EVEN TRY.

Then, Erik-who-wasn’t-Erik smiled, tore its lips back, and the teeth were all wrong, all messed up, and Charles saw what was wrong.

Leathery skin, dry and hollowed-out and a bit reddish. Tufts of hair sticking out at odd angles, ivories yellowed and lips like dead, century-old slugs. Bones nearly visible under the crumpled flesh. And still, Erik’s bog body was grinning.

Charles screamed until his lungs gave out.

  


“Charles.”

The blanket felt horrible against his skin, all soaked with sweat, rubbing him raw.

“Charles.”

Something was touching him. He pushed it away, eyes blind from tears.

“Charles!”

Correction: Someone was touching him, and it was Erik, the Erik with eyes which didn’t look like wrinkly raisins. He sat up, so abruptly his head spun, but he didn’t care. “Erik, it’s you?” It came out more as a question than he had intended.

“Of course I am me, Liebling, Schatz.” A worried frown making his face scrunch up (God did Charles want to vomit, but he was still sobbing so that was no option), Erik brushed a sweaty lock back behind Charles’ ear. “Verdammt, you must have had one hell of a nightmare. Didn’t pull me in, but you screamed like- like something really really bad had happened.”

Shakily, Charles breathed in. Breathed out. Breathed in.

Erik was kneeling on the mattress, beside him, still alive and breathing. He was holding his hand, grip warm and secure.

“I thought I had lost you.”

The little wrinkles Charles loved so much about Erik’s eyes appeared as his husband tried a smile.

“No. I am here, and I will always be.”

  


In the morning, on the first of November, they had breakfast in the tastefully decorated dining hall.

Charles couldn’t stop rubbing his eyes, not even after his third cuppa, and he was aware of the watchful eye Erik was keeping on him every now and then, like he would grow antlers any moment now or something. But at least, the scrambled egg was great, and the radio diffusing light music and the occasional news report painted every angle less sharp.

Erik looked up from his toast. “Oh dear, is that marmite you got there? How did you even get that, Geliebter?”

“From the buffet, of course.” Charles smiled. “Such a small Bed and Breakfast, and still they’ve got everything one could wish for.”

“Well, everything _you_ could wish for.” An adorable scrunch of the nose. “I still don’t understand how you can eat that... _brown disgrace_.”

Charles shivered. _Brown_.

Immediately, Erik caught on and reached over to brush a hand against his husband’s cheek. “It was a nightmare. A bad one, but a nightmare, not reality. I would never abandon you to be replaced by a shell.”

“Ok.” Still, his smile didn’t feel quite right on his face, and not for want of trying.

They continued eating in silence. Around them, the chatter of the few other guests, and the calming hum of the radio.

Suddenly, a ray of sun sneaked in through the high windows and fell on the table cloth between them, and as if on clue, the Walker Brothers’ cover of The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore) cut through the casual banter hanging in the air.

Erik caught Charles’ eye. “Now, if that isn’t a sign. Look-” With his fork, he pointed out of the window at the slowly clearing sky- “just because people or your mind tell you that a thing is happening and true, reality doesn’t always have to agree.”

_The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore _

Charles smiled, toyed with some egg on his plate.

_The moon ain’t gonna rise in the sky _

He looked up, at the blue of the heaven’s tent.

_The tears are always clouding your eyes_

Finally, he met his husband’s eyes, and they didn’t hear the next line because he leaned in and kissed his beautiful husband, and he didn’t care if anyone saw or complained, because he was just so grateful. Against his lips, he felt Erik smile.

Afterwards, Charles leaned back in his wheelchair, all warm and fuzzy inside, not a corner left for leaden sadness as he said, “I know. Now you are here, with me. And... And for once, the sun is shining.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, it's time for... HONEST & CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM! But no, seriously, I'd very much like to improve my writing. So, please tell me what you didn't quite like. Are my sentences too long? Are the characters OOC sometimes? Do I repeat certain sentence structures too often? Whatever you like, just put it in the comments and I'll try to do it better next time :) 
> 
> Oh, I will miss this (even though I'm sleep-deprived because of it xD)... take care, you lovely people ❤️


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